THE
RELIGION OF SCIENCE
BY
DR. PAUL CARUS
THIRD EDITION. RE\!ISED AND ENLARGED
My people "ure destr^edfor lack of knowledge.
Because thou, hast r^ected knowledge., I will also rejed
thee that thou skalt be no priest to nte, Hosea 4, 6,
Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Buddha.
CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT BY
The Open Court Publishing Co.
1893-
PREFACE.
The work of The Open Court Publishing Company, appears
to be of purely theoretical importance ; but it pursues, neverthe-
less, an eminently practical aim, which, briefly expressed, is to
propound, develop, and establish the Religion of Science,
The present booklet aims to sketch the isagogics of the Reli-
gion of Science, intending to serve as an introduction to it, to pre-
vent misconceptions, and to impart general information concerning
its principles and scope.
In order to establish the Religion of Science it is by no means
necessary to abolish the old religions, but only to purify them and
develop their higher possibilities, so that their mythologies shall be
changed into strictly scientific conceptions. It is intended to pre-
serve of the old religions all that is true and good, but to purify
their faith by rejecting superstitions and irrational elements, and
to discard, unrelentingly, their errors.
The churches of to-day still pursue a policy which closes their
doors to those who dare to think for themselves. Thus, the scien-
tist and the philosopher will most likely shake their heads at the
idea of broadening the established religions and developing them into
the Religion of Science, which will stand upon scientifically prov-
able truth, and will base our religious views upon that one and omni-
present revelation which is found in nature. But the undertaking
is not quite as hopeless as it appears. The churches, and especially
the American churches, are not as conservative and stationary as
iv
PREFACE.
their dogmas pretend to be. Almost all our churches have, during the
last two decades, grown immensely in depth and catholicity. There
is a very strong tendency among them to get rid of sectarian nar-
rowness and dogmatic crudities. The influence of science is felt
in our religious life everywhere, and its ultimate aim, although w'e
are still very far from it, can but be a rationalising of the religious
faith and a broadening of the sectarian creeds into one cosmical
religion, which will be the only true and catholic faith, the religion
of truth, i. e., of scientific truth, the Religion of Science.
We must introduce, on the one hand, the warmth of religious
enthusiasm into the province of philosophy and science, and, on the
other hand, the spirit of uncompromising criticism and scientific
research into the domain of religious conviction.
We must learn to know that Science is but another name for
Revelation.
* ^ ^
The Religion of Science is an appeal to all mankind. It ap-
peals to all lovers of truth within the churches and without.
Luther said somewhere, ‘ ‘ The worst idols in the country are
the sacraments and the altar" ; and Luther’s criticism is pertinent
still. The Religion of Science comes to protest against the idolatry
of our churches and against their pagan spirit which alone brings
them into conflict with science.
* * »
The name, “Religion of Science," has not been invented to
denote a schism, but to proclaim a principle which opposes not the
faith of the churches, not their moral spirit, not their Christianity,
but their dogmatism, their trust in rituals and their paganism.
The Religion of Science is not intended to be a new sect among
the many other sects that now exist. The Religion of Science is no
visible church with a definite number of members, having a consti-
PREFACE
tution, by-laws, and a creed. The Religion of Science is the invis-
ible church, and its members are all those who, like ourselves, be-
lieve in the religion of truth, who acknowledge that truth has not
been revealed once and once only, but that we are constantly facing
the revelation of truth, and that the scientific method of searching
for truth is the same in religious matters as in other fields.
Those who profess the principles of the Religion of Science
may belong to any church or to no church. They may, without
becoming indifferent to distinctions, call themselves Christians, or
Jews, or believers in the Religion of Humanity, or Freethinkers.
Their bond of union is not a common ritual, nor forms, nor ceremo-
nies, but the common aim of searching for, of trusting in, and of
living in agreement with, the truth. And this hallowed community
of the invisible church is no mere illusion.
To this invisible church belong Confucius, Zarathustra, Moses,
Buddha, Christ, all the prophets, the saints, the investigators of
truth, the inventors, the leaders of mankind, the learned and the
great ; and also all the humble, the meek, the poor in spirit, those
who hunger for the spiritual gifts which the heroes of thought and
deed have procured in their hard struggles for progress and for
the realisation of human ideals.
The idea of the Religion of Science is as little Utopian as was
the possibility of developing astronomy from astrology, or chemistry
from alchemy, for the progress from the old dogmatic religions to
the religion based upon our knowledge of the facts of nature is ex-
actly of the same kind.
Religions develop naturally. The religions of to-day are not,
as some of their adherents pretend, the product of a supernatural
revelation, but are based upon the science of the times when they
were founded. Our religion must embody the maturest, surest, and
best established knowledge of to-day.
PREFACE.
Vi
The Religion of Science is still a voice crying in the wilder-
ness. Yet it comes from the heart of mankind and cannot be sup-
pressed. Should it remain unheeded, it will be repeated by others
that shall come after us, until its warning be heard and obeyed.
We do not hope to reach our aim in the near future, but we
are confident that our ideal is sound, and that the eventual evolu-
tion of the religious views of mankind will justify our hopes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction . . . . i
Principles, Faith, and Doctrines 5
The Authority for Conduct 17
Ethics of the Religion of Science . . 25
The Soul ... 33
Immortality , . • 45
Mythology and Religion 63
Christ and the Christians ; a Contrast . . 75
The Catholicity of the Religious Spirit .91
In Reply to a Freethinker . loi
In Reply to a Presbyterian 119
Index 139
INTRODUCTION.
We are born into the world as living, feeling, and
thinking beings. We live for a while and then we die.
And what is our life? We toil, we suffer, we hope,
we aspire, we work. Our joys are fleeting, and many
of them leave behind them the lees of regret and dis-
appointment, Only a few hopes are realised, only
some aspirations are fulfilled, and only a part of our
efforts is crowned with success.
Thus our life appears as a transient phenomenon,
narrow in its field, short in its span of years, and lim-
ited in its power of achievement.
What shall be our aim and purpose ?
Shall we look for satisfaction in the little gratifica-
tions that come from the pleasures of life? And is
there no higher object than to live and be merry and
pass away as though we had never been ?
We anxiously look for support in tribulations, for
comfort in afflictions, and for guidance in the vicissi-
tudes of life. And the assistance that we find is our
religion.
How can we acquire information concerning our-
4
mTRODUCTION,
selves and the world in which we live? How shall we
find a religion ?
Information can be had only through inquiry. We
have to prove all things and hold fast that which is
good. Says Jesus of Nazareth: ''Seek and ye shall
find.”
The methods by which we try to find a religion to
support and guide us must be the same as those that
we employ in other fields of life and which are com-
prehended under the name of science. In this sense
we say, the religion we seek is the religion of science.
PRINCIPLES. FAITH. AND DOCTRINES.
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
What is religion ?
Every religion is, or should be, a conviction that
regulates man’s conduct, affords comfort in affliction,
and consecrates all the purposes of life.
What is science ?
Science is the methodical search for truth ; and
truth is a correct, exhaustive, and concise statement
of facts.
What is the religion of science ?
The religion of science is that religion wherein man
aspires to find the truth by the most reliable and truly
scientific methods.
The religion of science recognises the authority of
truth, scientifically proved, as ultimate. It does not
rely on human authority, even though that authority
pretends to have special revelations from some super-
natural source.
The religion of science accepts no special revela-
tions, yet it recognises certain principles. It has no
creed or dogma, yet it has a clearly defined faith. It
8
FRWCIPL^S, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
does not prescribe peculiar ceremonies or rituals, yet
it propounds definite doctrines and insists on a rigor-
ous ethical code.
What are the principles of the religion of science ?
First, to inquire after truth.
Second, to accept the truth.
Third, to reject what is untrue.
Fourth, to trust in truth. ^
And fifth, to live the truth.
Is there a difference in principle between religious
and scientific truth ?
No, there is none.
There is a holiness about science which is rarely
appreciated either by priests or by scientists. Scien-
tific truth is not profane, it is sacred.
There are not two antagonistic truths, one religious,
the other scientific. There is but one truth, which is
to be discovered by scientific methods and applied in
our religious life.
Truth is one, and the recognition of truth is the
basis of all genuine religion.
What are creeds and dogmas ?
Creeds and dogmas are such religious doctrines as
are propounded without proof, and the acceptance of
which is demanded even though they may appear ab-
surd before the tribunal of science.
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
9
The principles of the religion of science admit of no
creeds, yet the religion of science has a faith.
What is the faith of the religion of science ?
The faith of the religion of science is its trust in
truth.
The difference between faith and creed is this : creed
is a mere belief, faith is a moral attitude. Faith in
creeds is the determination to be satisfied with unwar-
ranted or unproved statements. The faith of the re-
ligion of science is the conviction that truth can be
found, and that truth is the sole redeemer.
• There are religious teachers who expressly forbid
any investigation of their religious dogmas, and insist
that rational inquiry shall not be tolerated in matters
of faith. Their faith is called blind faith.
The religion of science rejects blind faith as irre-
ligious and immoral, and preaches that it is our duty
to inquire into all the questions that arise in life.
The religion of science is not a religion of indiffer-
ence ; it does not proclaim that kind of toleration which
allows every man to believe and act as he pleases.
On the contrary, it proclaims most positive and stern
doctrines.
^ Religious indifference, as fashionable now as it has
ever been in certain circles, is detestable to any one
who is serious about truth.
Let us have honest belief or honest unbelief, and
FRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
lO
abandon that unconcerned apathy of a half-hearted
religion.
He that is the first and is the last has said :
know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor
hot. I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then,
because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
What the Roman church claims to be, the religion
of science is. The religion of science is the catholic
and orthodox religion.
We do not say that the truth as we know it now is
perfect and complete. Not at all. We know compara-
tively little, and the world is inexhaustible in problems.
But we do know that truth can be attained step by step.
Inquiry into truth is not only a scientific necessity, it is
also a religious duty, and no pious devotion is of the
right kind, unless it be accompanied by the spirit of
research.
While the religion of science rejects dogmas, it is
not without doctrines; its faith is not without sub-
stance.
What is the source of the doctrines of its faith ?
The doctrines of the religion of science are the re-
sult of experience, not of one man only, but of the
whole race.
They have to be proved and are always liable to
critical revision.
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES. ji
What does the religion of science teach regarding
rituals and ceremonies ?
The religious life of the established religions con-
sists to a great extent in the use of sacraments, cere-
monies, and rituals, symbols instituted to convey in
allegorical form religious doctrines, and to express by
visible signs and outward forms the invisible spiritual
relations between men and God. Baptism, confession,
the holy communion, matrimony, are such rituals. The
religion of science does not deny that appropriate forms
are needed to express in a worthy and adequate way
those transactions which are of a religious nature.
Ceremonies are one way of consecrating life and the
most important events of life. Yet the symbols must ad-
equately express the ideas, and the ideas must be true.
The religion of science attaches no intrinsic value
to symbols themselves, but only to their meanings.'^
The symbols must not be conceived as the Indian con-
ceives the spell of the medicine-man. They are mean-
ingless and inefficient aside from the meaning that
men put into them. There is no magic power in them.
The religion of science has no objection to ceremonies,
but it does not prescribe special and peculiar forms as
essential to religion, or as indispensable conditions of
salvation.
What are the doctrines of the religion of science ?
(i) The religion of science propounds as one of its
main doctrines that every act has its unavoidable con-
12
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
sequences, good or evil, according to the nature of the
act. (2) The religion of science teaches that the moral
commandments in which almost all the established re-
ligions agree are sound. (3) That which is good and
that which is evil must be found out by scientific in-
vestigation. (4) The religion of science accepts the
verdicts of science.
This does not mean that the opinion of every scien-
tist is to be accepted as science, but only those state-
ments which are proved by rational arguments and
can be verified by experience, or, if possible, also by
experiments.
What is the place of scientists in the religion of
science ?
Scientists, as seekers of truth, are prophets of the
religion of science.
Prophets and priests have authority in the measure
in which they represent the authority of moral conduct.
They have no authority of themselves. Thus, to the
faithful believer no amount of error or fraud in proph-
ets and priests will overthrow their trust in religion.
The same is true of science.
Scientists have authority in such measure as they
have investigated, found, and proved the truth. They
have no authority of themselves.
Scientists are subject to error, yet no amount of
error can overthrow science and the authority of
science.
FJiJNCIJPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTFINES,
13
The religion of science is based upon the authority
of science, not of scientists, and science is not only
physics or the so-called natural sciences, but it includes
also sociology and ethics. Scientists as prophets of
truth are indispensable helpmates of the preachers of
morality. Yet scientists and preachers are mortal,
like other human beings, and both of them are liable
to error.
As priests are frequently found wanting in religious
virtues, so scientific professors are often lacking in the
ethics of science.
Scientists object to popes ; but how many of them
revere their own persons as infallible vicars of truth !
And how arrogant, as a rule, how obstinate and per-
vicacious is the tenor of their disputes 1 What stub-
born sticklers are they for trifles ! How great is their
vanity i Happily, there are exceptions. Yet even if
there were no exceptions, the authority of science
would stand in spite of all the shortcomings of scien-
tists.
It is to be conceded that scientific men are always
at variance among themselves concerning truths to be
discovered. This, however, does not contradict the
fact that the truth can be found and clearly stated.
Some questions have been settled for good, others are
still open. The former are to be regarded as scientific
truths. They are such as will be agreed upon by all
those who take the trouble to study the subject care-
fully. The open questions only are the objects of con-
14
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
tentlon among the searchers for truth, and their very
disagreement is a most important means for the dis-
covery of truth.
What is our relation to truth ?
j Truth is a correct statement of facts and the laws
of its being j it describes a power independent of us.
Whether or not truth will be such as we desire it
to be, is not the question. We cannot fashion or alter
it. Being unalterable, we can only accept it and regu-
late our life accordingly. There is no choice left
for us.
There is no reason, however, to be timid when
finding ourselves at the mercy of a power beyond our
control. We have developed into thinking, feeling,
and aspiring beings, and our rational nature, which
appears in its fullest efflorescence in science, enables
us to make firm and certain steps. We can combat
the evils of life, and better conquer them, the deeper
and greater our insight is into truth. The very fact of
our existence, such as it is, and the practical impor-
tance of truth, inspires us with confidence in that All-
being, in which and through which we have originated,
and the laws of whose nature are beyond our control.
We have no choice left but to trust in truth, and we
have also good reasons to do so.
* *
It is true that we are surrounded by mysteries,
temptations, and afflictions. Yet these conditions of
PRINCIPLES, FAITH, AND DOCTRINES.
15
our life urge us the more seriously to search for the
truth, lest we go astray and become the victims of our
errors. There is certainly no other choice ^eft for us
than to take reality as it is, to understand it, and to
act in concord with its laws. We cannot make the
truth ; we cannot fashion it at our pleasure ; we can
only accept it. But blessed is he who trusts in the
truth, who harkens to its behests, and leads a life in
which obedience to truth is exemplified.
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT.
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT.
|ls there any authority for conduct ? How do we
know of it, and what is its nature ?
Truth is a correct statement of facts ; not of single
facts, but of facts in their connection with the totality
of other facts, and, finally, with all facts, so that we
can see the regularities that obtain as well in one as in
other cases ; or, popularly speaking, that we can under-
stand their why and wherefore.
Truth, accordingly, is a description of existence un-
der the aspect of eternity specie mferniiatis'). We
have to view facts so as to discover in them that which
is permanent. We must dig down to that which is
immutable and everlasting, to that which will be the
same in the present instance as in any other instance,
so as to behold in facts the law of their being. We
can make or mar almost all objects with which in our
experience we come in contact ; but that peculiar fea-
ture of facts which we describe in laws, the everlasting,
the immutable and eternal, that which will be the same
in the same conditions, is beyond our control. We
cannot alter or fashion it. It is as it is, and we have
to mind it in all things which we do or aspire for.
20
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT,
These wonderful features of facts, which we call
laws, have shaped the world and man, and the moral
ideals of man. They are shaping the fate of the uni-
verse still, and will continue to shape it for all time to
come. They are the everlasting in nature, and if, in a
figurative sense, we personify nature, we can speak of
nature’s laws as that which constitutes her character.
When refi^ecting on this peculiar character of real-
ity, we are overawed by its grandeur, but the most
wonderful thing about it is that the laws of nature are
ultimately not mystical, but easily intelligible.
Science teaches us, step by step, that all laws form
a harmonious system of laws. They are all corollaries
of an all-pervading regularity. We have to regard all
special laws as applications of general laws and learn
thus why they must be such as they are and cannot be
otherwise.
If science were, or could be perfected to omnis-
cience, the laws of being, we have no reason to doubt,
would be pellucid as glass, and even in their most
complicated instances as obviously self-evident as 2 x
2=4, and the all-pervading plan would appear strik-
ingly simple.
Yet how prodigious and portentous are the results
of this intrinsic harmony I What strict uniformity and
what astonishing variety ! What rigidity of law, and
yet what a free play for all possible variations ! A
stringent and irrefragable order in constantly changing
conditions I
THE AUTHORITY FOR COHDUCT,
21
The everlasting in existence is the ultimate author-
ity for our conduct, and, as such, it has, in the lan-
guage of religion, been called by the name of God,
The evolution of social beings takes place as all
other events of nature according to law, and this law
is briefly called the moral law of nature. The moral
law is as stern, implacable, and irrefragable as any
other law. Wherever it is heeded it will bring bless-
ings ; wherever it is disobeyed it will be followed by
curses.
All religious commands are human formulas de-
signed to inform people how to live in accord with
the moral law. Not the authority of religious com-
mands, but that of the moral law, is ultimate. Reli-
gious commands derive their justification from the
moral law of nature. They are right if they are in
agreement with it, otherwise they are wrong.
The authority for conduct is a reality, the existence
of which can be established by scientific investigation.
The moral law of nature is as undeniable as the exist-
ence of gravitation and as the reliability of mathe-
matics.
*
* *
What has science to say of God ?
Science does not speak of God, and need not speak
of God, because it employs another terminology than
religion. Moreover, it does not search for the eternal
of nature in its totality, but in its various and particu-
20
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT.
These wonderful features of facts, which we call
laws, have shaped the world and man, and the moral
ideals of man. They are shaping the fate of the uni-
verse still, and will continue to shape it for all time to
come. They are the everlasting in nature, and if, in a
figurative sense, we personify nature, we can speak of
nature’s laws as that which constitutes her character-
When reflecting on this peculiar character of real-
ity, we are overawed by its grandeur, but the most
wonderful thing about it is that the laws of nature are
ultimately not mystical, but easily intelligible.
Science teaches us, step by step, that all laws form
a harmonious system of laws. They are all corollaries
of an all-pervading regularity. We have to regard all
special laws as applications of general laws and learn
thus why they must be such as they are and cannot be
otherwise.
If science were, or could be perfected to omnis-
cience, the laws of being, we have no reason to doubt,
would be pellucid as glass, and even in their most
complicated instances as obviously self-evident as 2 x
2=4, and the all-pervading plan would appear strik-
ingly simple.
Yet how prodigious and portentous are the results
of this intrinsic harmony ! What strict uniformity and
what astonishing variety I What rigidity of law, and
yet what a free play for all possible variations ! A
stringent and irrefragable order in constantly changing
conditions {
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT
21
The everlasting in existence is the ultimate author-
ity for our conduct, and, as such, it has, in the lan-
guage of religion, been called by the name of God.
The evolution of social beings takes place as all
other events of nature according to law, and this law
is briefly called the moral law of nature. The moral
law is as stern, implacable, and irrefragable as any
other law. Wherever it is heeded it will bring bless-
ings ; wherever it is disobeyed it will be followed by
curses.
All religious commands are human formulas de-
signed to inform people how to live in accord with
the moral law. Not the authority of religious com-
mands, but that of the moral law, is ultimate. Reli-
gious commands derive their justification from the
moral law of nature. They are right if they are in
agreement with it, otherwise they are wrong.
The authority for conduct is a reality, the existence
of which can be established by scientific investigation.
The moral law of nature is as undeniable as the exist-
ence of gravitation and as the reliability of mathe-
matics,
* *
What has science to say of God ?
Science does not speak of God, and need not speak
of God, because it employs another terminology than
religion. Moreover, it does not search for the eternal
of nature in its totality, but in its various and particu-
22
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT
lar manifestations only, and expresses abstractly the
results of its investigations in formulas called natural
laws.
While science does not speak of God, it teaches
God ; for every law of nature is a part of God’s being.
Every law of nature is in its sphere an authority for
conduct ; it is a power which can be adapted to our
wants only when we adapt ourselves to it. It is inde-
pendent of our wishes and cannot be infringed upon
with impunity.
All the great religions of the world which (with the
sole exception of Buddhism) have called the ultimate
authority for conduct God,” have represented him in
the image of man. Religious Theism is almost without
exception anthropomorphic.
*
* *
The various views of God are briefly denoted by
the following terms :
Theism, or the belief, without any qualification, that
God, whatever be his nature, exists.
Atheism, or the view that rejects any conception
of God.
Polytheism, or the belief in many gods.
Monotheism, or the belief that there is but one God.
Anthropotheism, or the belief that God is a personal
being like man.
Pantheism, or the belief that identifies the All with
God.
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT.
23
Deism, or the view adopted by the Freethinkers of
the eighteenth century, who rejected miracles, but
held that God is a personal being, the Creator and
Legislator of the universe.
Entheism, or the view that regards God as insepar-
able from the world. He is the eternal in nature.
Cosmotheism, or the view which regards the cos-
mic order as God.
Nomotheism, (from vofio5=law') or the view which
recognises God in the uniformities of nature.
Which conception of God is adopted by the reli-
gion of science?
The religion of science is not Atheistic, but The-
istic.
Monotheism, as it is commonly held, is the belief
in a single God. In this sense monotheism is actually
a polytheism that has reduced its gods to one in num-
ber. Yet God is neither one single individual God
nor many Gods. Number does not apply to him.
God is one not in the sense that there is one kind of
Godhood. There is not one God-being ; but there is
divinity. God is one in the same sense that there is
but one reason and but one truth.
The religion of science rejects Anthropotheism and
also Deism, which is only a peculiar kind of Anthro-
potheism.
The God of the religion of science is not a person.
However, He is not less than a person, but infinitely
more than a person. The authority for conduct which
24
THE AUTHORITY FOR CONDUCT.
the religion of science teaches is divine and holy. We
should call God neither personal nor impersonal, but
superpersonal.
The religion of science does not accept Panthe-
ism. It does not regard nature and all parts of nature
or all aspects of nature as identical with God. The
eternal of nature only is God. Those features alone
are divine which serve us as authority for conduct.
And God is not limited to actual existence. Since
the order of nature is ultimately a matter of intrinsic
necessity, God is the condition of the arrangement of
any imaginable world. He determines the laws of
any possible kind of nature. In this sense, in the lit-
eral sense of the word, He is supernatural. He is in
all things as the law of their being ; but He is at the
same time above all things, for the law is not limited
to special places of existence, but determines every-
thing that exists, including anything that may exist.
God is not matter, nor is He energy ; and we must
not look up with reverence to the forces of nature
which we utilise. God is that which determines the
shape of matter and directs the course of energy : He
is the formative factor which moulds worlds, which
fashions all beings, which has created our soul, and
which moves onward in the progress of evolution.
This God is the superpersonal God of Entheism, of
Cosmotheism, and of Nomotheism.
ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.
ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.
What is the essential difference between religious
and irreligious ethics ?
The ethics of the old religions can briefly be char-
acterised as obedience to God, while the ethics of the
atheist consists in the attempt to bring about as much
happiness as possible. The former establishes an ob-
jective authority of conduct which imposes duties upon
us ; while the latter makes the criterion of morality
subjective. The former is briefly called the ethics of
duty ; the latter the ethics of pleasure or hedonism.
The religion of science rejects the ethics of pleas-
ure and accepts the ethics of duty. The authority of
conduct is an objective power in the world, a true
reality which cares little about our sentiments. We
cannot rely upon our sentiments, our desire for plea-
sure, our pursuit of happiness, for a correct determina-
tion of our duty.
What is the part of happiness in ethics ?
The ethical problem has nothing to do with happi-
ness ; the ethical problem proposes the question, What
28 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.
is our duty? And our duty remains our duty whether
it pleases us or not.
The problem concerning happiness is not, How can
we satisfy as much as possible the desires which, we
hope, will make us happy, but how shall we learn to
be happy while attending to our duty ?
The fact is, that the neglect of our duties causes
great misery ; but the attendance to our duties does not
by any means always imply an increase of happiness.
What is the purport of happiness ?
Happiness of which men speak so much and which
is often so eagerly sought in a wild pursuit, does not
at all play an important part in the real world of facts.
Nor does it lie in the direction toward which our de-
sires impel us. Happiness is a mere subjective ac-
companiment in life which is of a relative nature.
Happiness may be compared to a fraction, the de-
nominator of which consists in our wants and desires ;
the numerator, of their satisfactions \ and man’s nature
is such that their relation remains always a proper frac-
tion. The denominator is always greater than the
numerator ; for as soon as the satisfactions habitually
increase, they are accepted as a matter of course ; we
become accustomed to them, so that we no longer feel
them as pleasures, which means, in the terms of our
simile, we at once increase the denominator in equal
proportions.
ETHICS OF THE RELIC lOX OF SCIENCE.
29
Is there an increase of happiness through evolu-
tion ?
Duty requires us to aspire forward on the road of
progress. But while our pains are constantly lessened
and our various wants are more and more gratified,
the average happiness does not increase. It rather de-
creases. The child is, as a rule, happier than the
man ; and a man of little culture is jollier than a sage.
The fool is happy in his foolishness.
Shall we abandon progress, culture, and wisdom,
when we learn that our happiness will thereby be di-
minished ?
If hedonism were the right ethical principle, we
ought to sacrifice anything for an increase of happi-
ness ; but it is not.
Nature does not mind our theories. Our theories
must mind nature. We have to grow and to advance,
and our happiness is only an incidental feature in the
fate of our lives. In considering the duties of life, we
should not and we cannot inquire whether our obe-
dience to duty will increase or decrease happiness.
Shall we regard the pursuit of happiness as im-
moral ?
Buddhistic and Christian ethics recognise the futil-
ity of the pursuit of happiness. But in misunder-
standing the spirit of the will of God, of the authority
of conduct, of the moral order of the Universe, some
30 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE,
disciples of Buddha and of Christ teach the ethics of
asceticism. They regard the pursuit of happiness as
immoral.
It is remarkable that neither Buddha nor Christ
taught the ethics of asceticism. Buddha expressly
declared that self-tormenting was injurious and un-
necessary for salvation, and Christ did not request his
disciples to fast. He himself ate and drank so that his
enemies reproached him with being ‘‘a man glutton-
ous and a wine bibber” (Matth. xi, 19).
What does the religion of science teach of asceti-
cism ?
The ethics of asceticism is the morality of the
monk. It is negativism. It aims at the destruction
of life.
The religion of science does not accept hedonism,
but neither does it accept asceticism. The one is as
erroneous as the other.
The religion of science bids us inquire into the du-
ties of life and to attend to them.
Man must study his own self j he must understand
which of his desires are good and which are bad. He
must inquire into the nature of the authority of conduct
which prescribes duties to him. He must strengthen
that part of his soul which aspires to perform duties
and even identify his very being with the behests of
the authority of conduct : He must become an incar-
nation of God.
ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.
31
This will teach self-control as the main duty to-
ward one’s self and justice as the main duty toward
others.
Asceticism may be regarded as an attempt at doing
more than duty requires. The ascetic tries to become
divine by suppressing or destroying the human.
As soon as we understand that the truly human is
a revelation of the divine in nature, w^e shall see the
error of regarding them as antagonistic. By suppress-
ing the human, we suppress the divine.*
- Let us not regard that which is truly human as
being beneath the dignity of moral aspirations.
The pursuit of happiness is not wrong, and to enjoy
the pleasures of life is no sin. It is only wrong to re-
gard happiness as the criterion of ethics and to believe
that pleasures are the ultimate aim of life.
*
Recreations, pleasures, and aspiring to happiness
are not the purposes of life, yet they are in their sea-
son not only allowable, but even moral duties. Re-
laxation is necessary, and happiness imparts a buoy-
ancy which helps man to accomplish his work. A
rigorous suppression of our natural inclinations renders
us unfit to attend to our duties. There is no virtue in
morosity, and the happiness of living creatures, is, as
it were, the divine breath which animates them.
Every fact is suggestive, and every truth implies a
* In this sense the sentence of Terence is often quoted : “iW*// humani
a me aliennnt puto."
32 ETHICS OF THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.
duty. Our own existence, the relations to our fellow
beings, the nature of reality and the constitution of
the Universe — in a word, everything teaches us les-
sons which we have to mind. There are duties toward
ourselves, toward our fellow creatures, and toward the
future of mankind.
:!c *
The prescripts of the religion of science keeping
aloof from hedonism and from asceticism, may be
briefly formulated as follows :
Know thyself and the laws of thy being.
Learn the duties which the laws of thy being imply.
Attend unfalteringly to thy duties.
THE SOUL
THE SOUL
What am I ? Whence dc I come, whither do I go,
and what is the substance that constitutes my being ?
My fellow-beings appear to me, like all other ob-
jects of my surroundings, as material bodies, which
are in motion ; and so I appear to them and to myself.
But the nature of my own self is different. I am a liv-
ing and feeling being. My own seif manifests itself in
consciousness. I am aware of ray own existence ; and
the whole range of my existence in so far as I am di-
rectly aware of it, is called the soul.
What is the nature of our soul ?
Our soul consists of impulses, dispositions, and
ideas. I am a living, willing, and thinking being.
Impulses are tendencies to act, naturally called
forth in irritable substance by all kinds of stimuli.
Habits are acquired by the frequent repetition of im-
pulses. Impulses grown strong by inveterate habits
are called passions.
Inherited habits constitute dispositions or propen-
sities which awake to activity on the slightest provoca-
tion. They form the foundation of the various func-
36
THE SOUL.
tions of the organs of the organism, and also of the
tenor of conscious soul-life. The latter is generally
called temperament.
Ideas are representations of things, or of qualities
of things, or of relations among things. When ideas
enter into the causation of action as the determinant
element, they are called motor-ideas or motives.
The elementary impulses of our soul are not clearly
and distinctly perceived. They mingle into one com-
mon sensation, which is quite general and vague.
Sometimes only by special disturbances do some of
the elementary impulses rise into prominence, appear-
ing as hunger or thirst or pain of some kind.
The realm of the activity of our elementary im-
pulses constitutes what we feel as our life.
Every impulse is a tendency to move j and in so
far as impulses are called forth by stimuli which act
upon the living substance, they are called '^reactions.”
As soon as impulses become clearly conscious they
are called will. Will, accordingly, is a very complex
kind of impulse. Will is an impulse in which a clear
conception of the result of the motion constitutes the
main factor of the tendency to move. In other words,
will is an impulse which has developed into a motor-
idea.
How do ideas originate?
Ideas develop out of feelings.
That which characterises the soul of thinking beings,
THE SOUL.
37
is the significance which its feelings possess. Certain
sensations are produced by certain stimuli, the same
sensations always by the same stimuli ; and these pe-
culiar forms of various feelings become indicators of the
presence of the various conditions that cause them.
Thus they acquire meaning, and meaning produces
clearness. Meaning changes dim feelings into con-
sciousness.
The origin of meaning in feelings is the birth of
mind.
Sensations which take place inside the organism
are, through habits and inherited dispositions, pro-
jected to the outside, where experience has taught us
to expect them. Sensations are signs, indicating ob-
jective realities, and when through the mechanism of
language sentient beings develop word-symbols, which
are signs of signs, representing whole classes of reali-
ties, they rise into the sphere of human existence.
What is thought ? What is rational thought ? What
is reason?
The interaction which takes place between ideas
is called thought.
All sensations enter into relations with the mem-
ories of former sensations ; and thus sentient beings
naturally develop into thinking beings. Human thought
which discovers and utilises the presence of universal
features in reality is called rational thought ; reason
being the norm of correct thinking.
38
THE SOUL
The soul consists of many various impulses, but it
possesses at the same time a peculiar unity. How
are we to account for the unity of the soul ?
A man can think incompatible ideas, but he cannot
act according to them, at least not at the same time.
He can, to be sure, successively obey motives that are
self-contradictory, but he will have to stand the con-
sequences \ so that a man will have to regret his ac-
tions as soon as wiser and better ideas become dom-
inant in his soul.
The necessity of action imperatively imposes upon
the soul a unity which would otherwise scarcely origi-
nate. The whole organism has to act as a unity \ con-
flicting impulses and contradictory ideas must come to
an agreement. And thus the necessity of harmonious
action exercises a wholesome and educating influence.
It tests ideas in practical issues; it matures them by
bringing incompatible motor-ideas into conflict, thus
establishing consistency in the soul.
If situations arise in which several various im-
pulses and conflicting motor-ideas tend to be realised
in action, a struggle will begin among them and con-
tinue until the strongest one gains the upper hand.
This strongest motive, then, is executed by the organ-
ism.
The power of passions is all but irresistible in the
savage, while rational ideas' gradually gain in strength
with the advance of civilisation. Long experience,
inherited habits, and to a great extent, also, repeated
THE SOUL,
39
regret for rash actions, accustom man to act only after
sufficient and careful deliberation.
The habit of suppressing passions until all conflict-
ing motor- ideas have measured their forces against
each other becomes easier and easier, and its exercise
is called self-control.
The character of a soul depends upon the impulses
and motor-ideas that are dominant in it They are
the decisive elements which determine the actions of
a man.
The decision which is the final outcome of delib-
eration is comparable to a motion carried in a legisla-
tive body. It is like the majority vote adopting a plan
upon the execution of which the whole body of voters
is now resolved, and these resolutions of the soul are
called the will of man.
What is the name of the unity of man’s soul?
The idea which represents the organism as a whole
is called the “I” or ego, and it is a matter of course
that the I or ego always regards the final outcome of
deliberations as its own resolutions.
The ego, by itself, is an empty symbol Its con-
tents are those which the ego stands for, viz., the
qualities of the whole soul; that is, of the impulses
and motor-ideas of the personality which the ego rep-
resents.
We say, “I have ideas”; but we ought to say, ‘^I
consist of ideas.” My ideas are real parts of myself.
40
THE SOUL,
The phrase, have an idea,” can only mean that
this idea stands in connection with the ego-idea, rep-
resenting the whole personality of myself. It is at the
moment present in the focus of consciousness.
The contents of the ego of a man, viz., the constitu-
ents of his personality, are changeable. He wills now
this, now that, and his actions at different times are
often very incompatible with each other. But there is
a continuity in his acts which is recorded in a chain of
memories called recollections, in all of which the act-
ing person regards himself as a constant factor and is
called by the same pronoun ‘‘ I.” The expression << I ”
being for a continuous series of acts the same in spite
of many changes, produces the illusion that the acting
person himself remains the same throughout.
However, we know for certain that the acting per-
son, our organism, and the ideas of which we consist,
do by no means remain unchanged. In the same way
that our surroundings change, so we ourselves, our
thoughts and desires, our organism, and our very souls
change. We call the rose-bush which blooms in June,
and is a dry, thorny stick in December, the same rose-
bush. We call our body the same body, although the
materials of which it consists are comparable to a com-
plex whirl of atoms, the unity of which consists in the
preservation of its form, for new materials are con-
stantly pouring in, while part of the old ones pass out.
And finally, we call our spiritual self by the same name
*‘I,” viewing it as a unity so long as the continuity of
THE SOUL.
41
its existence is preserved, although our ideas do not
remain the same, either in strength or in their con-
tents- The changes in our character at an advanced
age may be comparatively slight, but there are, never-
theless, changes, which are not less real because they
remain unheeded. Our self being the measure of
things, they appear to change when we change, and we
seem to remain the same ; yet this unalterable same-
ness of our self is a fiction.
There is an error very prevalent that the ego-idea
is the real soul. The existence of an ego-soul, how-
ever, has been abandoned by science. Need we add
that all those whose views and sentiments are closely
intertwined with the conception of an ego-soul, look
upon its surrender as a destruction of the very root of
religion and of all religious hopes ?
What is the effect upon religion of surrendering
the conception of an ego-soul?
Our conception of the nature of the human soul
has been as thoroughly altered through the results of
modern scientific research as our view of the universe
since the times of Copernicus. Copernicus abandoned
the geocentric, and psychology the egocentric stand-
point; and future religious development will be in-
fluenced in no less a degree by the latter than it has
been by the former.
New truths appear at first sight always appalling.
They come to destroy the errors which we have ac-
42
THE SOUL.
customed ourselves to cherish as truths. Thus the
truth naturally appears to be destructive. But look at
the truth closer, and you will find that it is after ail
better and greater and nobler than the most beautiful
fiction woven of errors.
Appalling, and destructive of the very foundations
of our religious conceptions, as the surrender of the
ego may seem at first sight, a closer acquaintance with
the subject will show that the scientific solution of the
problem of soul-life does not annihilate but elevates
and purifies religion. It dispels the mystery of religious
doctrines and preserves their ethical kernel.
There is no metaphysical ego-soul* yet there is the
real soul of our ideas and ideal aspirations, and the
value of the latter is not less because the former has
proved to be an error.
All the religious enthusiasm which men have pro-
fessed to have for their ego-souls, and of which they
have proved the earnestness in deeds, expresses the
natural sentiments for their real souls.
Facts are often misinterpreted, and misinterpreted
facts are rejected by many. We must reject the mis-
interpretation and accept the facts.
The welfare of our souls is the mission, or rather
the ultimate object of life ; for what shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ?
How shall we value souls ?
The worth of a man does not consist in his titles.
THE SOUL.
43
not in the honors he receives from his fellow- men, not
in his possessions, not in his knowledge nor in his tal-
ent, not in any of the externalities of his life, but in
his soul ; and the soul of the poorest servant is not less
than the soul of the wealthiest man, the most learned
savant, or the most powerful monarch. Indeed, the
soul in the bosom of the serf that is of the sterling
quality of an Epictetus is, without qualification, supe-
rior to the soul of a Nero, in spite of the dazzling
talents, which made this imperial monster, in the be-
ginning of his reign, appear as a genius on the throne.
We do not say that worldly possessions are worth-
less, nor do we consider knowledge and talents as an
indifferent adjunct ; on the contrary all the gifts and
blessings of life possess their values, for they are in-
strumental, and almost all of them are, in a greater
or less degree, indispensable for the furthering and
quickening of the life of the soul.
Yet the worth of a soul depends first of all upon
the moral stamina of a man's character, and the no-
bility of the sentiments that dominate his being.
IMMORTALITY.
IMMORTALITY.
Is the life of our soul limited ?
Every personality consists of a definite idiosyncracy,
of impulses, dispositions and motor-ideas, the pecu-
liarity and relative strength of which admit of innume-
rable variations. Now the question arises, Whence
do the constituent elements of a man’s soul come, what
is the part they play, and whither do they go ?
Our soul is partly inherited from our ancestors,
(our dispositions,) partly planted in us by education,
(in the main our ideas,) partly acquired by imitation,
(our habits,) partly formed under the impression of our
own individual experience, (in the main our convic-
tions,) and partly worked out through reflection, (in
the main our theories). Thought, i. e., the interaction
that takes place among the elements of the soul, enables
us to make new thought-combinations out of the stock
of ideas that live in our mind. Thought renders the
anticipation of future facts possible.
Our soul, accordingly, has a long history, which
neither begins with our birth, nor ends with our death.
We existed wherever the ideas of which we consist
were thought, and shall exist wherever they are thought
48
IMMORTALITY.
again ; for not only our body is our self, but mainly our
ideas. Our true seif is of a spiritual nature.
Our life is only a phase in the evolution of a greater
whole, and the spiritual existence of ourselves, our
soul, is a precious inheritance of the past, which will
evolve in future generations to higher and ever higher
planes of being and to nobler and ever nobler desti-
nies.
I.
* *
The preservation of souMife after the death of the
individual is not an assumption, nor a probability,
nor a mere hypothesis, but a scientific truth which
can be proved by the surest facts of experience. If
soul-life were not preserved, evolution would be im-
possible. Evolution is possible only because the souls
of our ancestors continue to live in us. The soul of
every individual is a peculiar idiosyncrasy of his an-
cestors, and of the education received from parents
and teachers. During his life he adds his own ex-
periences^ good or bad, and when he dies his soul is
gathered to his fathers, and together with their souls
it floats on in the great stream of immortality
The continuance of our soul-life beyond death has
been expressed in many different ways. In the myste-
ries of Eleusis it was allegorically represented by a
torch which went from hand to hand and by ears of
wheat that symbolised the reappearance of vegetation
after its wintery sleep while Christianity expresses it
in the dogma of the resurrection of the body.
IMMORTALITY.
49
Among Benjamin Franklin’s manuscripts was found
an epitaph which he had written in 1728, when he was
twenty-three years of age. The many corrections
found on the page were added, as we may fairly sup-
pose, in later years, and show that Franklin had pon-
dered on the subject, and that he had given much
thought to it. The epitaph’^ runs as follows :
“The Body
of
Benjamin Franklin
Printer
{Like the cover of an old book
Its contents torn out
And stript of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here food for -worms.
But the work shall not be lost
For it will [as he believed] appear once more
In a new and more elegant edition
Revised and corrected
by
The Author,”
The simile that compares man to a book is very
expressive, as it sets the nature of the soul in a true
light We are inclined to regard the binding, the pa-
* We may add that Franklin did not make use of this proposed epitaph.
He directed in his last will to have a simple stone with nothing on it but the
names of himself and his wife. The passage in the testament reads thus *,
“ I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a mar-
ble stone, to he made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with
only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription :
Benjamin 1
AND V Franklin.
Deborah ) 178-
be placed over us both,”
50
IMMORTALITY,
per, the presswork as the essential elements of the
book j yet we must be aware that they are not its soul.
The soul of the book is its contents. That All-
being, in whom we live and move and have our being,
publishes one edition after the other, and when one
copy is destroyed, the book itself, i. e., the soul of the
book, is not lost. If but the contents of the book are
valuable, if they contain truth, it will reappear in a
new edition, perhaps in a more elegant binding, but
certainly revised and corrected and enlarged.
What are the contents of the soul ?
The contents of the soul form, in a word, a world-
picture, the most important part of which, for human
beings, is the relations that obtain and that ought to
obtain in human society.
The world-picture of the soul, however, is not a
mere image of our surroundings painted in glowing
sensations. Man forms a systematic conception of the
facts of nature so as to behold the laws of their being.
The world of which we are parts is permeated by
law. All events are concatenated and interrelated by
causation, and every act of ours has its definite con-
sequences. Through a long process of evolution we
have come to be what we are. Our surroundings have
impressed themselves upon our sentiency and have
moulded all our ideas and the motives that prompt us
to act. Our ideas and motives are the quintessence of
our being j they are our veriest self, our soul. If and
imiORTALITY.
St
in so far as our ideas are true and our motives right,
they are the highest and best and most precious part
of our existence, they are the divinity of our being,
they are the incarnation of God in us, they are the
soul of our soul.
Is there a prototype of the soul ?
Rational beings here upon earth might, in many re-
spects, have developed otherwise than they did. It is
not impossible that rational creatures on various other
planets are in possession of different physical constitu-
tions than we. They may have developed wings ; they
may have tongs-like organs unlike our hands for taking
hold of things, etc., etc. Yet it is certain that they
cannot develop another kind of reason. Their arith-
metic, their mathematics, their logic must be the same
as ours. Nay, more than this, the basic maxims of their
ethics cannot be essentially different from those which
are the factors underlying the growth and evolution of
human society upon earth. In other words : The con-
stitution of the universe is such that certain features of
man's soul are necessarily such as they are and cannot
be different in any other kind of rational beings. There
are not prototypes of beings, as Plato maintained, but
there is, nevertheless, something analogous to proto-
types. The nature of rational beings is foreordained
and conditioned by the very nature of things, and thus
the biblical saying appears in a new light, that man
has been created in the image of God,
52
IMMOETAL/TY,
The eternal in nature, the universal in the changes
of the world, the law that pervades facts, has taken
its abode in man ; briefly, it is the truth which appears
in his soul, and the truth is a correct representation
of reality, it is a picture of God.
Religious truth is not merely a scientific cognition
of the parts of the world and a comprehension of all
the details of natural laws ; it is a comprehension of
our being in its relation to the whole, to God. And this
comprehension must not be theoretical, it must per-
meate all our sentiments, it must dominate our entire
being and find expression in all the acts of our life.
Why is the scientific view of the soul not readily
accepted ?
There is one great difficulty in this theory of the
soul, of its divinity and of its immortality, as the re-
ligion of science propounds it. There is no difficulty
about its truth. We can readily see that it is undeni-
able; it can be positively proved. The facts upon
which it rests are beyond dispute. But the difficulty
is of another nature. We have great trouble, not so
much in understanding, but in feeling that our soul is
not our individual self, but God in us.
We are so engrossed with materialism that we look
upon the externalities of life as our real self, and this
materialism finds expression in the forms of tradi-
tional religions now. The binding, paper, and general
appearance of a book is in the sight of most people that
IMMORTALITY
53
which constitutes its essential and entire being.
finds it very hard to rise in his emotional life to that
purity of abstraction which distinguishes between the
contents or soul, and the present make-up or body, of
a book, of a man, of ourselves.
The question of immortality is a moral question.
It requires a man of moral fibre to see the solution in
its right light. It is not enough to understand the prob-
lem ; we must live it. Our natural habits still tend to re-
gard the unessential of our bodily existence as our real
seif, and all our emotions, our hopes and fears are ex-
clusively attached to this present copy of our soul.
We have not only to change the mode of our think-
ing, but also the mode of our feeling. We must de-
velop the higher emotions, which are in sympathy with
the true essence of our being. We must unlearn the
errors that make us lay too much stress upon incidents
that have only a passing value, and we must regulate
our actions from the standpoint of our spiritual nature.
We must feel ourselves to be not the make-up of the
present edition of our soul, but the soul itself.
What is the natural standpoint of the unreflecting
man?
That attitude of a man in which, heedless of his
soul, he takes his present make-up as his true self is
called egotism ; and the man with egotistic tendencies
views the world from a standpoint which does not
show matters in a correct perspective.
54
IMMORTALITY.
The whole world and his own self are pictured to
the egotist in distorted proportions. All his feelings, his
sympathies, and antipathies, too, become perverted.
Why must we abandon the standpoint of egotism ?
It is apparent that all the purposes of a man which
are designed to serve his egotistic desires only, will be
vain, and if he were ever so successful in his efforts,
death will step in at last and annihilate the very pur-
pose for which he lived.
Nature does not want egotism. She suffers it with
forbearance, leaving a man time to find the narrow
road to life, but then she cuts him down and selects
from the harvest which he had gathered in for himself
that which she can use for the progress of mankind,
leaving him only the bitter knowledge that the fruits
of his work are taken from him and that he has sowed
what another shall reap.
Unless a man’s entire emotional life be centred in
his soul, his life will be a failure.
Is the abandonment of the egoistic standpoint a
resignation ?
This view of the soul appears to those who still
cling to the conception of an ego-soul as a resignation ;
and in a certain sense it is a resignation. We have to
give up the idea that our real self belongs to ourselves.
Our soul is not our own, but mankind’s ; and man-
kind in its turn is not its own ; the soul of mankind is
IMMORTALITY
53
from God, it develops in God, and all its aspirations
and yearnings are to God.
Yet the characterisation of this view of the soul as
a resignation will produce an erroneous impression.
There is as little resignation about it as when in a
fairy-tale a shepherd-lad finds out that he is a prince.
The resignation consists in resigning an error for truth.
What we regarded as our self is not our self, but only
a fleeting shadow, and our true self is much greater
than we thought it was. The shepherd-boy in the
fairy-tale might with the same reason say that his very
existence had been wiped out, as some psychologists
speak of the annihilation of the soul, when only the
ego-conception of the soul is surrendered.
When our sphere of being becomes widened we
should not speak of annihilation, and when we grow
beyond that which at first blush we seem to be, we
should not represent it as a resignation.
He who regards this view of the soul as a resigna-
tion only indicates that his sympathies, his hopes and
fears are still with the externalities of our existence.
The moment the very consciousness of our selfhood is
transferred into our soul-existence, we shall cease to
feel any resignation in this change of view.
What objection is made to the abandonment of the
ego-soul ?
The objection has been raised that there is neither
satisfaction nor justice in the idea that others shall
56
IMMORTALITY,
reap the fruits of our labors. But this objection has
sense only from the standpoint of an ego-conception
of the soul. The truth is that the future generations
of mankind are not others”; they are we ourselves.
We have inherited in the same way not only the bless-
ings of former generations, but their very being, their
souls : we are their continuance.
It is not an empty phrase to say that the former
generations of mankind are still alive as a part of our-
selves. For suppose that the soul-life of the past were
entirely annihilated and no vestige of it left, would
not our own existence at once sink to the level of mere
amceboid existence ? The thought of this will convince
us how truly real is the continuance of soul-life after
death I The souls of our beloved are always with us
and will remain among us until the end of the world.
What does the new conception of the soul imply?
Our spiritual nature imposes duties upon us ; it
teaches us to regard our life as a phase only of a
greater and a more complete evolution, and commands
us to rise above the narrowness of our transient and
limited existence.
As soon as we rise above the pettiness of our indi-
vidual being, the boundaries of birth and death van-
ish, and we breathe the air of immortality. But this
change of standpoint is of great consequence. It af-
fects our entire existence and brings about a radical
change of our world-conception. It is like a new birth
IMMORrALITY,
57
which wili above ail be felt in our conduct. The higher
standpoint of immortality introduces a new principle
which will almost reverse our former habits and intro-
duce a new criterion of what is to be regarded as right
or wrong.
The moral commandments are rules of action which
appear as a matter of course to him who has been
born again, who has raised himself to the higher plane
of soul-life, and whose sentiments and expressions of
this attitude are what Christianity calls ‘‘love.”
The moral commandments are forced upon the
egotist, and the egotist naturally regards {hem as im-
positions. However, he whose attitude is that of love,
does not feel in this way. He fulfils the command-
ments of his own free will.
Our sympathies must be the sympathies of our
better self, and if they are, our course of action will,
without any interference of the law, lead us to do any-
thing the law and the rules of equity demand.
There is no resignation in truly moral conduct.
Moral conduct should be the expression of our char-
acter ; it should flow naturally from the nature of our
being.
II.
Immortality is the most important of all religious
topics, and it appears desirable to consider the most
stringent objections that can be made against it.
Dr. Robert Lewins,* a radical freethinker of Eng-
* See Asnostic journal, XXXIV, No. *6, and The Open Owr/, No. 360.
58
IMMORTALITY.
land, arraigns the Religion of Science for its accep-
tance of a belief in God and in Immortality, saying :
' ‘ The assumption is utterly untenable, though held by Kant,
Voltaire, Rousseau, and even, though more obscurely, by Fred-
erick the Great and David Kume, whose influence on the litera-
ture, history, and politics of their age was so conspicuous. Spite
of his vast culture, and probably as its consequence, a remnant
of chromatic metaphysics still seems to cling to Dr. Carus. ”
^•'This chromatic metaphysics is,” according to
Dr. Lewins, barrier to achromatic reality,” and he
demands that ^^all forms of Spiritualism or Animism,
including Theism, Demonism, and posthumous human
existence, must be relegated to the sphere of our racial
credulity and superstition.”
Now we agree with Dr. Lewins in the aspiration of
having reality as achromatic as possible, but declare
at the same time that a flat denial of ^'posthumous
human existence ” is an error. The continuance of
man's soul as described in the Religion of Science is
not a coloring Of facts, it is not chromatic, it is not a
distortion of truth, but it is an exact statement of the
conditions of life as they are in reality.
Some time ago the following two questions con-
cerning immortality were put to me :
' ‘ Do you believe in the survival of man as a distinct individu-
ality after bodily dissolution ?
“Do you believe that man after such bodily dissolution, can,
as a distinct, conscious, intelligent being communicate with those
who still live in the flesh ?
nniORTALiry.
59
My reply was this :
‘ ' In answer to the first question I should say : I understand by
individuality not only man’s soul, viz., his sensations, thoughts, and
ideals, but his entire existence, including his bones, muscles, sin-
ews, and all the material particles of which at a given time his
body consists. Accordingly, I believe in the final dissolution of
his individuality, and count it no loss ; but I believe at the same
time in the survival of the most essential part of man's individu-
ality, I believe in the survival of man’s soul.
‘ ‘To the second question I should answer: Not only do the souls
of our dead continue to communicate with those who still live in
the flesh, but they are present in their minds, and they will form
parts of the souls of the generations to come. The relation be-
tween the dead and the living is too intimate to be called a com-
munication. The souls of the dead form an ever-living presence
in the souls of the living. Progress and evolution to higher stages
is only possible because the souls of former generations continue
to live. If the souls of our ancestors were not with us and in us,
what a wretched, and, indeed, merely amoeboid existence would we
lead.”
There is not an iota of raetaphysicism or animism
left in this view of immortality. But perhaps my critic
will say that this is no immortality ; that this is a
proposition which teaches the final annihilation of
man’s personality in death. If he does, he is blind to
facts and fails to recognise the importance of that
which survives of us, which is not a mere trace of us,
but the essence of our personality, our very soul, the
substance and worth of our being.
In one sense, transiency is the order of the uni-
verse, in another sense, permanency. The present
IMMORTALITY.
6n
changes into the past, never to be the present again ;
it passes away. Every happening in the physical
world takes place never to happen again in exactly
the same way and under the very same circumstances.
But being embodied in the past, it remains an actual
part of the constitution of the world. It has become
a factor for ail the future, and will be a determinant
of any possible present to come. In the same way
every act of ours passes away, yet it is immortalised :
it remains an indelible reality of our life, influencing
and shaping our fate. Every thought of ours once
thought and buried in the past of former years is, in a
certain sense, gone forever, but in another sense, it
remains an everpresent reality, and our soul is a grand
structure consisting of the immortalised precipitate of
the sentiments, ideas, and acts done in past years,
dating back to the beginning of soul-life upon earth.
What is true of all events in the physical world
and of the facts of our psychical existence, is true also
of whole human lives. Nothing is lost in this world,
least of aU a human soul. To be gathered to our
fathers does not mean to be buried in the ground, but
to be embodied as a living element into the evergrow-
ing organism of mankind- There we are preserved as
a living presence with all our peculiarities and with
the entire personality of our being. Death is a disso-
lution of our body; it is the end of our career; it is
the discontinuance of our activity in this individuality
of ours. Yet is it no annihilation of our thoughts, of
LUMORTAL/TV.
6i
our soui; of our spiritual existence, of ourselves. Deeds
live on : and what are vre but the summation of our
deeds I Our deeds, that is to say, 'we ourselves, continue
after death as much as the memory of a useful knowl-
edge which we have learned in the days of our youth
remains an essential part of us throughout life.
Thus we may lament the premature cutting off of
a valuable life by death, but we cannot complain about
the annihilation of a man's soul ; for it continues, it is
here with us and in us. We might as well complain
of the transiency of our school-years, forgetful of the
fact that both the knowledge we have acquired and
the fond recollections of dear friends are permanent.
The past lives on in the present and the dead con-
tinue in the living. Every soul is and remains for ever
a citizen of that invisible empire of spiritual existence
which is always coming, always near at hand, and al-
ways developing and growing. This empire of spiritual
life is not a phantom but an actuality. If anything is
real, ii is real. It is the kingdom of God of which
Jesus said that it is within us.
Now, in the face of facts and in the face of the im-
portant part which the continuance of the soul plays
in our life, shall we at the funeral of our dead step
forward and preach the annihilation of their existence?
Shall we say at the open grave of a friend that the be-
lief in immortality is a remnant of metaphysics and
animism to be relegated to the sphere of superstition ?
No 1 Spiritual facts are not less real than rocks and
62
niMORrALITY.
trees. Immortality is a truth as much as the existence
of man’s soul ; and a denial of it will warp our entire
world-conception.
As it is difficult for the uneducated mass of man-
kind to recognise the reality of the truth of immortality
and to appreciate its paramount importance, the various
religions have taught it in allegories which in Chris-
tianity have been crystallised into the dogma of resur-
rection. The doctrine of resurrection is a parable, and
the parable contains allegorical expressions which are
crude and inappropriate ; but the idea contained in it
is a truth. Science rejects the assumption of a ghost-
soul and also of a ghost-immortality, but science estab-
lishes at the same time the reality of the continuance
of man’s soul after death.
The immortality of the soul as taught by the Reli-
gion of Science is as complete and full as any faithful
Christian can reasonably expect. It is as real as the
continuance of our self which we daily experience. It
is not of less value, but of more value than the ghost-
immortality of an impossible dualism ; it is not ghastly,
not grotesque, not absurd (as Dr. Lewins says), but
noble, elevating, and comforting.
The immortality of the soul, such as the Religion
of Science proposes, is right here in this actual world
of ours, not in a celestial Utopia ; it is real and not il-
lusory ; it is a fact and not a dream ,• it is an undeni-
able truth and not, as Voltaire, Frederick the Great,
and his friends thought, a grand
MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
MYTHOLOGY AXD RELIGION.
What is the attitude of the religion of science to-
wards other religions ?
The religion of science is not hostile to the spirit
of the traditional religions : on the contrary, being their
matured product, it regards them as harbingers that
prepare the way.
The dogmatic religions are mythologies which at-
tempt to teach the truth in parable and allegory. They
are prophecies of the religion of truth.
Is mythology injurious ?
Mythology in itself is not injurious; on the con-
trary, it is a necessary stage in the evolution not only
of religion, but also of science. Man's mode of con-
veying thought is essentially mythological. All lan-
guage is based upon similes and we shall perhaps never
be able to speak without using figures of speech.
The religion of science does not come to destroy
the mythologies of old religion ; it does not come to
destroy but to fulfil-
What is the nature of the mythology of science ?
Science no less than religion had to pass and, in
many of its fields, is still passing, through a mytholog-
nG MVmOLOG } ’ AX:j /CELiGIO X
ical period ; and this mythological period is often
marked by fantastic notions and extravagant vagaries.
Astrology preceded astronomy, and alchemy preceded
chemistry.
It is a great mistake of the chemist to look down
upon the alchemist, and of the astronomer to speak
with contempt of the astrologer of former ages. It is
a sign either of narrowness or of a lack of information
to revile our ancestors because they knew less than we.
Baron Liebig was the greatest chemist of his times ;
yet he speaks with profound respect of the aspirations
and accomplishments of the alchemists. Those upon
whose shoulders we stand deserve our thanks not our
contempt. Let us not despise the anthropoid from
whose labors man has risen to the height of a human
existence I
The mythology of science still clings to us to-day.
When does mythology become injurious ?
Mythology becomes injurious as soon as it is taken
as the truth itself.
Mythology thus produces that self- sufficient spirit
of dogmatism which prevents further inquiry into truth.
What is the origin of the mythological religions ?
The historical religions were founded at a time when
science and its methods of inquiry did not as yet exist.
Yet religion was wanted. People cannot live without
spiritual support and solace and guidance. And as the
My?7/r' ‘ f:EL:ui'jX.
old Egyptians instinctively discovered such tools as
the lever and other simple instruments helpful to them
in their work long before they understood the princi-
ples of these contrivances ; as mankind in general in-
stinctively invented language as a means of communi-
cation without having any philological knowledge, and
even without the least inkling of the law’s of grammar
and logic : so some prophets rose among our ancestors
preaching to them some simple rules of conduct which
they had instinctively found when pondering on the
miseries caused by criminal and ruthless behavior.
The nobler conduct, preached by prophets and en-
forced by the evil consequences of sin, raised man-
kind to a higher ground. Men learned to feel and
appreciate the truth of the religious authority which
proclaims the moral commands; and the religious
convictions thus established proved even in their im-
perfect form an invaluable source of solace and help
in the tribulations of life.
Does the law of evolution apply to religion also ?
Religion develops according to natural law’s. Not
only the human body and all living creatures, but also
such intangible and spiritual entities as science, law,
language, and social institutions are products of evo-
lution, and religion forms no exception.
Tlie hypotheses of science are often formulated
with the help of analogies, and these analogies contain
figurative expressions. We speak for instance of elec-
MYTHOLOGY AXD RELIGIOX.
fR
trie currents, as if electricity were a fluid. This method
of using analogies which is of great service in scientific
investigations must not be taken as real science : it is
the mythology of science.
The mythology of science is no less indispensable
in the realm of investigation than it is in the province
of religion ; but we must not forget that it is a means
only to an end, the ideal of scientific inquiry being and
remaining a simple statement of facts.
While we may be able to free ourselves from the
shackels of mythology in science and philosophy, must
we, perhaps, still retain them in religion ?
The progress of religion in this direction will be the
same as in science and philosophy.
Progress of science means the formation of new
ideas, and the purification of our old ones. The myth-
ological elements must be separated from the pure
statement of facts, the latter being the grain, the for-
mer the chaff ; the latter are the truth, the former our
mythologies, being the methods of reaching the truth.
The chaff is the husks, and grain cannot grow with-
out the wholesome protection of the husks. The truth
contained in mythological allegories is their all-im-
portant element, which has to be sifted out and pre-
served. The rest is to be discarded ; it has served an
educational purpose and will have to be relegated to
the history of science.
Religious progress, no less than scientific progress,
MYTHOLOGY AND RELTGIOX,
69
is a process of growth, it is an increment of truth, and
also a cleansing from mythology.
Religion is a world-conception regulating man^s
conduct. Our world-conception grows with every new
information, and all those new ideas from which we
derive moral rules of conduct become religious ideas.
As science began with the crude notions of primi-
tive animism, so did religion begin with a mythology
full of superstition. And the ideal of religion is the
same as that of science, it is an increase of truth as
well as a liberation from mythological elements. The
more complete our knowledge is, the less is our need
of hypotheses, and mythological expressions can be
replaced by exact statements of fact. Both science and
religion are to be based upon a concise but exhaustive
statement of facts, which is to be constantly enlarged
by a more complete and more accurate experience.
The ultimate goal of religious development is the
recognition of the truth with the aspiration to live in
conformity to the truth.
Mythology which is conceived to be the truth itself
is called paganism.
Paganism is the notion that the parable is the mean-
ing it involves, that the letter is the spirit, that myth-
ology is the truth.
It is certainly no error to believe that virtue, jus-
tice, beauty, love, and other ideas have a real and true
existence in reality. They whose spiritual eyes are
too dim to see and to understand their being, will be
70
MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION
greatly benefited by the representations of the artist
and the poet, who present those ideals to us, the latter
in oiir imagination, the former visibly in marble as per-
sonal beings, as gods. There is no wrong in similes,
there is no fault to be found with parables. But he
who believes that these gods are personal beings, he
who takes the mythology to be the actual truth, is
under the spell of a gross misconception, and this mis-
conception is paganism.
Paganism leads to idolatry. He who worships the
symbol is an idolater.
The dogmatic religions of to-day are still under the
spell of paganism ; and even Christianity, the highest,
the noblest, and most humane of all religions, is not
yet free of idolatry, — a fact which appears in many
various customs and ceremonies. Sacrifices have been
abandoned, but prayer, adoration, and other institu-
tions still indicate the pagan notion that God is like a
human being, that he takes delight in receiving honors,
and that upon special considerations he will change
his decrees and reverse the order of nature for the sake
of those whom he loves.
The religion of science does away with paganism
and idolatry.
The religion of science rejects the religion of adora-
tion, and prescribes onl}’^ one kind of worship — ^the
worship in spirit and in truth which consists in obeying
the authority of moral conduct
MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
71
The religion of science rejects all the vain repeti-
tions of such prayers as attempt to change not our will
but the will of God. Those prayers only are admitted
by the religion of science which set our souls in har-
mony with the authority of conduct, which consists in
self-discipline and teach us to say with Jesus of Naza-
reth Not our, but Thy will be done 1
What are the sources of religious truth ?
The religion of science knows of no special revela-
tions \ it recognises only the revelation of truth, open
to all of us, as it appears in our experience, viz., in
the events of nature surrounding us, and also in the
emotions of our own heart
Religion is not due to a supernatural revelation,
but to the same natural revelation to which science
owes its existence.
The form of the established religions is mytholog-
ical, for its founders spoke in parables, and the alle-
gorical form of their teachings was quite adapted to
the age in which they lived.
New problems have arisen with the growth of sci-
ence. The mythology of our religions has become
palpably untenable, and we are no longer satisfied with
the dogmas extracted from parables.
Is there any conflict between religion and science?
True science and true religion can never come in
conflict. If there is any conflict between religion and
72
MVmOLOGY A.VD RELIGION.
science, it is a sign that there is something wrong in
either our science or our religion, and we shall do well
to revise them both.
This is the conflict that at present obtains between
science and religion. The infidel laughs at the im>
postures of religion, while the bigot demands an im-
plicit surrender of reason.
The infidel as well as the bigot are under the er-
roneous impression that the mythology of religion is
religion itself.
What is to be done ?
The bigot demands that science be muzzled, and
the infidel proposes to eradicate religion.
Shall we follow the bigot who wants the errors of
paganism to continue ? Or shall we follow the infidel ?
Shall we root out science, because it is not as yet free
from mythology ? Shall we eradicate mankind because
there are traces of barbarism left in our institutions,
even to-day ? Shall we abandon religion because it
still retains some of the superstitious notions of pa-
ganism ?
We follow neither the bigot nor the infidel, but
propose confidently to advance on the road of pro-
gress. It is the course prescribed by nature, which
willingly or unwillingly we shall have to pursue.
The ideal towards which every religious evolution
tends, is to develop a Religion of Truth. And this ideal
can be reached only through an honest search for the
MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.
73
truth with the assistance of the scientific methods of
inquiry.
Christianity possesses an ideal which is called the
invisible church.” Even the most devout Christians
are aware of the fact that the present condition of the
church is not the realisation of its ideal The ideal of
the invisible church can find its realisation only in the
religion of science.
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS;
A CONTRAST.
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS; A CONTRAST.
For the sake of convenience, let us distinguish be-
tween Christ and Jesus. While the name Jesus de-
notes an historical man, who, as we have good reason
to believe, lived about two thousand years ago, we
understand by Christ that ideal figure, which has been
the main factor in forming the Christian church and
which is represented in the gospels.
Whether Jesus was Christ, in other words, whether
the account of the gospels is historical or mythical, is
a problem which we do not care to discuss in detail here.
The problem is of a purely scientific nature and has
nothing to do with practical religion, except as it may
open the eyes of those who are as yet under the spell
of the paganism which still prevails in our churches."^
It is quite immaterial whether or not the accounts of the
♦ The problem of Jesns can now be regarded as solved, and the results of
all the labor! OQS researches into the acconnts of the gospels have been
snmmed np by H. Holtzmann, Professor of Theology at the University of
Strassbnrg i. E,, in his Hand-Commentar s»m nemn Testament, Professor
Holtzmann’s works are the more valuable as they are the statement, not of a
Freethinker, but of a Christian and a theologian by protesion. They are
reverent, but scientific and critical,
Holtzmann’s results rem a i n positive. Jesus is, in his opinion, an histori-
l^cal person, whose human character and fate can best be traced in Mark, the
oldest of the gospels.
78
CmiS'r AND THE CHRISTIANS.
gospel are historical ; yet it is not a matter of indifier-
ence whether or not the Christ-ideal is true ; and we
say that it is true ; and so far as its truth has been rec-
ognised, the spirit of Christ lives and moves and has
its being.
The belief in the miraculous, which existed at the
time of Christ, quite naturally entered into the gos-
pels, and we cannot regard it as an absolutely injuri-
ous element, whose presence ought to be deplored.
On the contrary, miracles and the belief in miracles
indicate the power of the Christ-ideal. All great his-
torical movements are soon surrounded by more or
less beautiful legends, and these legends frequently
reflect the meaning of history better than the histori-
cal facts themselves, for the legends reveal to us, in a
poetical vision, the thriving power of historical move-
ments. There we peep, as it were, into the minds of
mankind ; we see their yearning, aspiring, wondering,
and we learn their conception of the ideals that move
in their hearts. Christianity would have been insignifi-
cant and insipid, if it had not produced such a myth-
ology as we possess now. There is no fault to be found
with the mythology, but only with those who misun-
derstand the part which mythologies play in the evo-
lution of religious ideas.
We have to accept the results of science in its in-
vestigation of the historical pretensions of the gos-
pels, yet at the same time we insist on the fact that
Christ is a living presence even to-day, and our whole
CffMIST AND THE CHRISTIANS.
79
civilisation is pervaded by his spirit. Christ is the
key-note of the historical evolution of mankind since
the second century of the Christian era, and it seems
improbable that the influence of this ideal will ever
subside, or that its glory will ever be outshone by a
greater star to come ; for the Christ-ideal is a tendency,
rather than a type ; it indicates the direction of moral
progress, and not a special aim ; it represents an as-
piration towards perfection, and not a fixed standard.
Thus, with all moral rigidity, nay, sternness, with all
definiteness and stability, the Christ-ideal combines
an extraordinary plasticity ; it is capable of evolution,
of expansion, of growth.
Christ is an invisible and superpersonal influence
in human society, guiding and leading mankind to
higher aims and a nobler morality. Christ is greater
than every one of us, and we are Christians in the
measure that his soul has taken its abode in us.
The Christ of the gospels, however, who has be-
come the religious ideal of Christianity, is very different
from the Christ of the Christians — or, let us rather say,
of those who call themselves Christians, who worship
Christ in a truly pagan manner. Those who call them-
selves after Christ are, upon the whole, the least worthy
of the name, for, if he came unto his own, his own
would receive him not.
The so-called faithful Christians have made them-
selves a religion little better than that of fetish wor-
shippers and practice in many respects an ethics exactly
8o ClfRISl' AXD THE CHRISTIANS,
opposite to the injunctions of Christ. Their worship
consists in adoration and genuflections and other hea-
thenish rituals, but they violate his commands. They
believe in the letter of mythological traditions, and
fail to recognise the spirit of the truth.
Let us here briefly pass in review some important
religious issues which present a strong contrast be-
tween Christ and the so-called Christians.
•¥
* *
Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, but those
who in public life ostentatiously set themselves up as
Christians bar the way, dim the truth, and impede life.
They demand a blind belief in confessions of faith and
other man-made formulas, while they trample under
foot any one who dares to search for the truth or walk
in the way of progress.
Christ is the way, which means, the spirit of evolu-
tion, of a constant moral perfectionment; but the Chris-
tians, in name, have become a clog on the feet of man-
kind, so that they are known as the chief suppressors
of truth, liberty, and progress.
Says Christ :
“Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites as is written,
‘ This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me.*
"Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men.
"For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the
tradition of men I . . . Full well ye reject the commandment of
God that ye may keep your own tradition.'* — Mark, vii.
CHRIST AXD THE CHRISTIAN'S.
8i
Which is the will of God : the injunctions preached
by preachers and priests, or the everlasting revelation
in the book of nature ? The former we have to accept
on trust ; the latter every one can find out for himself
by experience. The former are inconsistent, varying
and unreliable ; the latter can be investigated and veri-
fied. The literatures of all nations, including espe-
cially the scriptures of our religious traditions, have
been written in order to assist us in deciphering the
revelations of God as they appear in the immutable
laws of nature. Let us search the scriptures, and let
us study the works of our scientists. But always bear
in mind that truth is God’s revelation, be it pronounced
by Isaiah or Darwin, and not this or that formula, or
holy writ, or sacred tradition, and, least of all, a
cunque.
When certain of the Pharisees said to the disciples
of Jesus : “ Why do ye that which is not lawful to do
on the Sabbath days?” Jesus, answering them, said :
‘ ‘ What man shall there be among you, that shall have one
sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay
hold on it and lift it out ?
“ How much then is a man better than a sh«^p? Wherefore
it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. . . .
‘ * The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab-
bath :
“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath,”
The Christians of the first century abolished the
Sabbath and introduced Sunday as a sacred day; and
their Sunday was not a day of rest, but a remembrance
82
CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIANS,
of Christ’s resurrection. The Christians of our time,
however, know not how to celebrate the day. Although
they believe literally in the resurrection, Christ has
not risen in their souls.
The name- Christians revive the old pagan notion
that the Sunday is to be regarded as a dies aier, an
ominous day, on which it is not advisable to undertake
anything. They make of man the slave of Sunday;
they close places of harmless pleasures and useful in-
formation, and in such efforts they find a strong sup-
port by men of evil enterprises, who offer to the people
more exciting and less innocent amusements. Must
Christ come again to repeat the question :
“ Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good or to do evil ?
to save life or to destroy life ? ”
Is there any one who doubts that museums, good
theatres,* and libraries furnish recreations which exer-
cise a strong influence for good upon the development
of man’s mind? They provide a wholesome mental
food, educating without the toil of study and broaden-
ing our views. They are not idle pleasures ; they are
building up and life-saving ; they are, if enjoyed in the
right spirit, truly religious, and Christ teaches that it
is right to heal, to help, and to save on the Sabbath.
Some of the early Christians continued to celebrate
the Sabbath after the Jewish fashion, and the apostle
St. Paul suffered them to do so j yet he insisted vigor-
♦I say '^'gQ@d theatres^* on purpose, thinking that vulgar show-pieces
might he avoided on Sundays as well as on week-days. But a drama, like
Schiller's ** Maria Stuart,” is a sermon better than any divine can preach.
cm 1ST AXD THE CHRIS TIAXS.
83
ously upon liberty in such matters. We read in the
epistle to the Romans :
“One man esteemeth one day above another : another esteem-
eth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind.
“ He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and
he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.”
In his letter to the Galatians, however, who piously
abstained from the desecration of the Sabbath, the
apostle writes :
‘ ' Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
“ I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in
vain.”
A wrong conception of the Sabbath is an indication
of paganism ; and wherever paganism prevails the
spirit of true Christianity bestows its labors in vain.
Woe to ye hypocrites, who make religion ridicu-
lous! Woe to ye Sabbatarians, who make of Christian-
ity a nuisance ! Ye are blind leaders of the blind, a dis-
grace to the holy name which you write upon your altars.
We do not mean to abolish Sunday, or to deprive
the laborer of his rest on the seventh day. On the
contrary, we insist on keeping Sunday as a religious
and also as a secular holiday. But we object to a
wrong usage of Sunday, as if it were the Sabbath of
the Pharisees. We protest against the barbaric regu-
lations belonging to pre-Christian ages which have
been given up by all Christian nations with the sole
exception of the English, who, in the beginning of the
r///^IS'r JXI> THE CHRISTIANS.
middle ages dug them out of the misunderstood re-
ligious traditions of a remote past.
We want a Sunday, but not such a Pharisaic Sab-
bath as is foisted upon the nation by modern Phari-
sees. We want a day of rest, of recreation, of edifica-
tion, and not that superstitious /zr niente^ which means
a cessation of all wholesome activity. We want a lib-
eral, a religious, a spiritual, and truly Christian Sun-
day.
*
* 5|C
Christ never requested his disciples to eradicate
reason, or to believe anything irrational, or to accept
any of his doctrines in blind trust. On the contrary,
he wanted them to examine things, to discriminate
between the false and the true, and to discern the
signs of the times. Our senses should be open to in-
vestigation, and our judgment ought to be sound in
order to comprehend things. He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear, and he who has thoughts to think,
let him think.
How different are Christians 1 Christians demand
blind belief j they do not want investigation ; they
have a distrust of sense information and place no re-
liance upon reason.
What in the world shall we rely on, if reason ceases
to be trustworthy? If the light of reason be extin-
guished, all our sentiments, our enthusiasm, our aspi-
rations, avail nothing, for without reason, we grope in
the dark. Says Kant :
CHRIS'/' AXJD THE CHR/STIAXS.
85
‘ ‘ Friends of mankind and of all that is holy to man, accept
whatever, after a careful and honest inquiry, you regard to be
most trustworthy, be it facts or rational arguments, but do not
contest that prerogative of reason, which makes it the highest good
upon earth, viz., to be the ultimate criterion of truth. Otherwise
you will be unworthy of your liberty and lose it without fail ”
(Kant, "Was heisst : Sich im Denken orientiren.’* Edition Har-
tenstein, Vol IV, p. 352.)
^ *
Christ abolished prayer in the sense of begging
God to do our will, for he truly knew that God, unlike
man, is immutable, and his will cannot be altered by
supplications.
Christ makes no supplications, no praise, no glori-
fications of God ; he demands no genuflection or self-
humiliation. He does not beg for miracles or excep-
tions or special favors, and in the most wretched mo-
ment of his life he remains faithful to this spirit, which
lives in his prayer, saying: ''Not my, but Thy will
be done. ”
Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount :
“When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do;
for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.
" Be not ye 'therefore like unto them : for your Father knowetb
what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
"After this manner therefore pray ye : Our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
" Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in
heaven.
“ Give us this day our daily bread.
" And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
86
CHRIS'/' AND THE CJIRISTIANS.
“Aad lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you :
“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses.’'
This is a prayer for weaning oneself from prayer.
It is self-discipline, but not a begging of God to do
our will. Even the fourth prayer is an exhortation to
be satisfied with one’s daily bread and to ‘‘take no
thought for the morrow.” The keynote of ail prayers
is the third prayer, “ Thy will be done.”
The name-Christians actually do use “vain repeti-
tions,” so that prayer has almost ceased to have the
sense in which Christ used the word.
While recognising the error that obtains in the
Christian’s habit of praying, we do not mean to dis-
courage the Christian when he wants to pray, for
prayer is the moving of the spirit of Christ in the souls
of those who know not what Christ is. If their prayer
be honest, it will help them, it will mature them, it
will calm their anxieties and make them composed, it
will strengthen them, it will make them grow and de-
velop out of their paganism into the Christianity of
Christ. The more they grow in their spiritual life,
the more will they cease to prattle to God in childish
talk ; they will learn to pray like Christ, until their
whole being becomes a performance of God’s will.
’•'The original form of the Lord’s Prayer has only five, not seven, prayers.
For forther particulars see the author’s article on the subject in The Open
Cmrt, Vol. XII, No. 8, pp. 491-500.
C//AV.Sf J.VJ) TJ/E CmilSTIAyS. h;
Any sincere Christian who proposes to himself the
question, What shall I pray ? in order to pray in the
spirit of the Lord’s prayer, will come to the conclusion
that to ask for special favors is childish as well as use-
less.
Prayer must be made not with a view of altering
God’s will, but our own will. We grant, however, that
in a certain sense it is true after all that prayer has an
influence upon God. Prayer affects our attitude to-
ward God, toward the world, toward our fellow-men,
and in so far as our attitude is altered, the attitude of
our surroundings will be altered, too. Whether we
are impatient and afraid, or calm and self-possessed,
makes a great difference, and the whole situation in
which we are may change when we pass from one con-
dition into the other. The facts which we face, the
dangers which we confront, the duties which we have
to perform, assume another countenance j and this
change may and very frequently will be the most de-
cisive factor in the final result of our actions.
Take, for instance, our knowledge of nature. The
laws of nature have remained the same ; but while the
savage trembles before the forces of nature, we utilise
them to our advantage. The same electricity which
was so formidable to our ancestors is to us beneficent.
Truly, there is no change in the laws of nature, but a
change in our own attitude changes the situation in
such a way that it amounts to a most radical change of
nature itself.
CHRIST AXD THE CHRISTIAXS.
If knowledge can bring about such wonderful
changes, should not the good-will of a religious atti-
tude have the power to reform, to bless, and to save ?
* %
Should prayer mean supplication, it would be bet-
ter that all prayer ceased. And, indeed, the Lord's
prayer contains the injunction that we must cease to
ask God to do our will
While Christ’s prayer is an act of self-discipline
which attunes our will to the will of God, the Christian’s
prayer is, as a rule, a beggar’s supplication, which tries
to work miracles. The Christian’s prayer may be more
refined, but it is actually of the same nature as the
medicine-man’s incantation, which is supposed to take
effect by some mysterious telepathy.
The great Konigsberger philosopher uses the word
* sprayer,” not in Christ’s sense, but in the sense in
which it is used by the name-Christians. He says :
‘ ' To expect of prayer other than natural effects is foolish and
needs no explicit refutation. We can only ask, Is not prayer to be
retained for the sake of its natural effects ? Among the natural
effects we count that the dark and confused ideas present in the
soul are either clarified through prayer, or that they receive a
higher degree of intensity ; that the motives of virtue receive a
greater efficacy, etc., etc.
*' We have to say that prayer can, for the reasons adduced,
be recommended only subjectively, for he who can in another way
attain to the effects for which prayer is recommended will not be
in need of it.
“A man may think, *If I pray to God it can hurt me in no
CI/AVS/ JA7> 771 h t 7/A7S / /. lA .^1
wis.‘ ; far should he not exist, very well ! in that case I have done
too much of a good thing ; but if he does exist, it will help me.’ This
(face-making) is hypocrisy, for we have to presuppose
in prayer that be who prays is firmly convinced that God exists
“The conse»|uence of this is that he *a1io has made great
moral progress ceases to pray, for honesty is one of his principal
maxims. And further, that those whom one surprises in prayer
are ashamed of themselves.
“In public sermons before the public, prayer must be re-
tained, because it can be rhetorically of great effect, and can make
a great impression. IMoreover, in sermons before the people one
has to appeal to their sensuality and must, as much as possible,
stoop down to them.”
It is especially noteworthy that Kant says he who
has made great moral progress ceases to pray and
he adds the curious observation that those whom one
surprises in prayer are ashamed of themselves. ”
The Lord's prayer is no prayer in the common sense
of the word. It is not an incantation that exercises
a supernatural influence through ^*vain repetitions.”
The Lord's prayer must be lived, rather than spoken.
We need not pray it, if we but live it. Its spirit must be-
come part of our soul, so that our whole life becomes an
exemplification of the sentiment, *'Thy will be done.”
“Further, psychology teaches that very often the exposition
of an idea, weakens the efficacy it possessed, while still whole and
entire, although dark and undeveloped.
“And, finally, there is hypocrisy in prayer ; for the man who
either prays audibly, or who resolves his ideas internally in words,
regards the Deity as something that can grasped by the senses,
while it is only a principle which his reason urg^ him to assume.
go
cm/sr Axn the cj/eistiaxs.
While Christ's prayer means resignation to the will
of God, the Christian’s prayer is a superstitious trust in
miracles, in the hope that they will be performed for
his advantage. Christ’s prayer is an effort to change
our own will, not God’s will ; it is a self-exhortation
which helps us to be satisfied with God’s will and to
perform our duties.
These are striking difierences between Christ and
Christians, between Christ’s faith and the Christian’s
faith, between Christ’s prayer and the Christian’s
prayer, between Christ’s religion and ecclesiasticism.
Christ is a savior, a liberator, a reformer ; the typical
Christian is a stumbling-block, and a cause of an-
iioyance.
There is a wonderful saving power in the words of
Christ, but the name- Christians do not know it. They
walk in darkness and are not even aware of it them-
selves. They believe themselves to be saints, and are
in fact the spiritual successors of the scribes and
Pharisees.
If ever the name of Christ be dimmed in its glory,
it will be done by the vices of his followers in name,
and the freethinker will have to be called upon to re-
store the lost halo of the greatest reformer and the
staunchest defender of free thought and liberty.
The religion of science is not and cannot be the
Christianity of those who call themselves orthodox
Christians, but it is and will remain the Christianity of
Christ.
THE CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS
SPIRIT.
THE CATHOLICITY OF THI- RELIGIOUS
SPIRIT.
The old traditional religions take, as it were, a bee-
line in advancing man to the benefits and blessings of
truth. They make it possible for man to feel the truth
without knowing it ; the truth is given him in a mix-
ture with mythology, so that even minds incapable of
scientific inquiry can possess and apply it in practical
life-
Reiigion will naturally appear to neophytes who
have not entered into its sanctissimum and have never
had a glimpse of its esoteric spirit as a mystery j and to
those, who, blind to its truth, see its mythology only
as a medley of human fraud and folly.
In the assurance of devout piety there is a wisdom
that is not discarded by the religion of science. We
can have, and we should have, a resolute confidence
in the unbreakable and unbroken laws of existence.
We can have, and we should have, an intimate and
truly personal relation to that All-being in which,
through which, and to which we live. This All-being
in its wonderful harmony of law surrounds and per-
vades our entire existence- We cannot withdraw our-
CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT,
selves from its influence, and, truly, it is grand and
sublime and perfect beyond description. It is the
source of all blessings, and it encompasses us with a
beneficence that can be compared only to a father’s
love. It is greater than a father’s love ; and is greater
than any particular thing we know of, for it comprises
all things, and a father’s love is only one brilliant ray
of its sunshine.
When we regard our own being as a revelation of
the Ail-being, so that our very self is felt to be an in-
carnation of nature’s divinity, and that our will is
identified with God’s will, we shall learn to look upon
the troubles and anxieties of life with quietude. A
heavenly rest will overspread all our being. Whether
we struggle and conquer or stumble and fall, whether
we are in joy or in sorrow, whether we live or die, we
know that it is a greater one than ourselves who suf-
fers and struggles and has his being in us and in our
aspirations, and his greatness sanctifies the yearnings
of our heart and consecrates even the trivialities of
life.
We do not exist for enjoyment, for truly pure en-
joyment is an impossibility. We live to perform work.
We have a mission. There are duties imposed upon us.
And we can gain satisfaction only by performing
our work, by complying with our mission, by attend-
ing to our duties.
There is no genuine happiness, unless it be the
rapture of the God moving in us.
CA77roi/c/ry of the ee /jo iocs s p/e it.
When we consider the letter in which truth is ex-
pressed, we find an unfathomable abyss between the
religion of science and the dogmatic religions of the
established cliurches. It is the abyss that separates
mythology from truth, paganism from sound science,
idolatry from self-reliance, superstition from religion,
bigotry from righteousness.
When we consider the spirit in which the truth is
felt, we find that the spirit is the same in the old his-
torical religions as in the religion of science.
The spirit of almost all the wmrds of the great
teachers of mankind is the same as that which must
animate the religion of science, and the most beauti-
ful, the profoimdest, and subiimest of all sayings are
those spoken by the great Master of Galilee.
* The spirit of religion is true and noble, but dog-
matism affects, like a deadly poison, the religions of
mankind. How many of the keenest and most scien-
tific thinkers have been, and are still, through its in-
fluence, estranged from the church! Dogmatism warps
the sentiments of men and takes away the natural charm
that surrounds the holiest enthusiasm. Nevertheless,
even in orthodox churchmen the light of true religion
sometimes shines undimmed.
One of the founders of Christian dogmatism is St
Augustine. But he is not so narrow as are his follow-
ers. Although he sometimes appears narrow, his con-
ception of Christianity is broad, so that he might call
it the cosmic religion, the religion of truth, or that re-
tS THE RELhilors SPIRIT.
ligion which the scientist will find to be founded in the
constitution of the universe. Christianity is to him only
a name which was recentij' given to tlic cosmic religion
of universal truth- He says :
The very same thing which now is called Christianity ex-
isted among the ancients and was not absent in the beginning of
mankind until Christ himself appeared in the flesh, whence the
true religion, which already existed, began io he called Christian.”
(Retr. I, 13.)*
We are, furthermore, strangely impressed with the
remarkable agreement that obtains, not in the letter,
but in the spirit, between the teachings of the religion
of science and those of Johannes Tauler.
The quotation of a few short passages will suffice
to set this agreement in a clear light.
The chapter which is to be considered as the quin-
tessence of ail his preaching, ‘‘containing the doctrines
of Tauler in three points, discusses the subject, “how
we shall perfectly go out of ourselves and enter God.”
It must be observed that Tauler’s terminology is
different from ours. While “nature,” in the termi-
nology of science, is identical with reality, including
all that exists, also the laws of nature and the reality
of our spiritual being, it means to Tauler only the
lower desires of man and that which is apt to elicit
them. “Nature” means to Tauler what “Sansara”
means to the Buddhist. It is the sham of our indi-
♦ rm ptat nunc Christiana relisiit nuncuj^atur, erat apud antiques nec
d^ii ab initio generis kumaniy quousque ipse Ckrisius venirei in earns y unde
mra religie qnee Jam eraiy eeepif appellari Christiana.
r.l 77/0/./(:77‘y Of THE RELIOIOfS SPIRIT,
97
vidual existence, the deiusion of egotism, and the Van-
ityFair of our transient pleasures.
Says Tauler* :
"We now propose three points which contain briefly all that
on which we have expatiated in this book.
"The first point is this : He who wants to make progress in
bis sanctification, to become a real and affirmed friend of God, to
love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind,
and his neighbor as himself, and to truly feel God's presence in
his interior, in his heart, all earthly love of and inclination toward
anything that is not God must be slain and must remain dead."
We have to remark that there may be a difference
of opinion as to what God is and what God is not. For
instance, the duties of family life, energetic enterprise
in business, admiration of art may have appeared, if
not to Tauler, but to any average clergyman of Tau-
ler’s time, as ungodly. The religion of science finds
God in all things. The religion of science has over-
come the error of negativism and has freed us from the
shackels of asceticism. But this difference of view as
to the nature of God should not prevent us from seeing
the concurrence in principles.
Tauler continues :
‘ ' The second point demands that if we wish here in time, and
there in eternity, to attain to the cognition of the highest truth,
we must in all things rid ourselves of all pleasures of the spirit, in
which the spirit seeks and means itself. It is so common, alas !
* Medulla Animm, Chap. XXVI in Surtus’s Latin edition, Chap. XXV in
the German edition, Cliap, XXXIX in Cassender’s modern translation. The
quotations above are translated from the Cassender edition (Prague, 1872, 2d
ed., F. Tempsky).
CATHOLICITY OF THE RELIC 10 US SPIRIT,
that having abandoned all the externalities of life, the pleasure of
the spirit in us begins to awake. The spirit is pleased with certain
fancies and certain ways which it loves as its alter ego, which it
seeks and aims at ; and thus the spirit is captivated in these things
and shut out from the true light so that the latter cannot give any
enlightenment. The self-loving lust of the spirit to which the
spirit loves to surrender itself hinders and dims the rays of divine
truth. The exercises, whatever they may be, contemplation,
thought, activity, intuition, etc., are not used as means for a pure
seeking God, willing God, and meaning God. The spirit rather
seeks in them its own self. Their purpose is the ego and not
God.”
Is this passage not true of all those arguments
which are brought forth in favor of an individual im-
mortality of the ego ? How often is it claimed that
any other immortality but the ego-immortality is un-
satisfactory. Truly, the immortality of the soul ag
taught by science must be unsatisfactory to every one
whose religion has not as yet reached the height and
purity of Tauler’s doctrines. Those who find satisfac-
tion only if they have an ego-immortality, do not seek
God in religion, but themselves.
Tauler’s second point finds further explanation :
“In this state (of seeking God, willing God, and meaning God)
nature must slaughter and sacrifice its pleasure ; its seeking self
must die entirely. . . , This means in the proper sense of the word,
to die off to one’s self. It is a real entwerden (a becoming nothing),
an annihilation, a losing, a resignation. Nothing remains but God ;
nothing is retained but He ; there is no rest but in Him ; so
that God, in and with man, can do His will, so that God alone be
willing, working, illumining, and moving in man, man being noth-
CArifUl/C/TV uF 77 //; RELIGIOCS SPIRIT. m
ing of bis own accord, neither willing, nor working, nor illumining,
nay, even not existing except as that which God is in him ; so that
man is nothing at all in his ways, works, and objects ; i. e , in all
things man should seek himself neither in time nor in eternity."
“The third point of the whole doctrine is this : When man
has freed himself externally and internally of any and all pre-
tensions, when he has reached the state, in the way we ha\'o- indi-
cated, of standing upon his nothingness, then alone can he freely
enter into the highest and simplest good — into God* His entrance
however, must be thorough and not in part. . . . O, what bliss lies
in such moments I ... . One such entrance into God is sublimer
and more excellent than many other and often so-called great ex-
ercises and works outside of it. In it alone is real divine life and
true peace."
Tauler took Christianity seriously and extracted its
quintessence. Let us take Tauler seriously, and we
come to an agreement with Christianity.
Cling to the meaning of your mythology, O ye faith-
ful ; and you will naturally walk on the right path!
There is this constant objection made, “ If the reli-
gious doctrines are not literally true, if God is not
truly a person, if my ego is a mere illusion, if heaven
and hell are conditions of our being and not places
somewhere in space, what do I care for the meaning
of these parables ? ”
We answer : The substance is better than the al-
legory, the meaning is deeper than the mythology,
truth is greater than fiction.
He who does not see that the substance is better
than the allegory, the meaning deeper than the myth-
ology, and truth greater than fiction, had better cling
lOO catholicity of the religious spirit.
to the allegory, mythology, and fiction, lest he lose the
substance, the meaning, and the truth. His mind is
not as yet sufficiently matured to receive the truth.
We cannot feed the babes with meat, we must give
them milk.
♦
« 5 *:
The main secret of the innumerable blessings and
benefits which can be derived from religion lies in this :
that by learning how to live we learn to understand the
meaning of the world. The mystery of being is revealed
only to the man who actually lives a moral life.
Religion on the one hand demands a surrender of
ail egotistic desires, it teaches us the right spirit in
;\rhich we must regulate our conduct ; and on the other
hand religion gradually accustoms us to viewing life
from the higher standpoint of the divinity of nature.
We see that which is transient as transient and iden-
tify our being with that which is eternal. And the air
we breathe on the heights to which religion raises us
is bracing, refreshing, and healthy.
The religion of science is not a substitute for the
dogmatic and mythological religions of our churches.
On the contrary, the church-religions are a substitute
for the religion of science ; they are a mere temporary
expedient proposing mythologies so long as the truth
is not as yet forthcoming. When that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
The mythology is of a passing value but the truth will
abide.
IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER.
IN REPLY TO A FREETHINKER.
The Religion of Seienee has been severely criticised
in a series of articles that appeared in the Rreelkoughl
Jfagazine and were afterwards republished in pam-
phlet-form under the title ^ ^Religion and Seienee^ the
Reconciliation Mania of Dr. Paul Cams of The Ofen
Coiirf Anal3’sed and Refuted by Corvinus.’*
Identifying the negativism of his peculiar free-
thought with Science, and Religion with superstition,
Corvinus denounces everj” attempt at reconciliation
between Religion and Science, and condemns ex-
positions of a religion that would be in accord with
Science as a ‘‘conglomeration of self-contradictory
ideas,” which display “inconsistency” and “ambigu-
ity.” He calls me a “ fr-eethinker in disguise,” and
contrasts such passages in which I appear as “ vir-
tualfy a freethinker” with others in which I maintain
the existence of God and the immortality of the soul.
There are plenfy’’ of misrepresentations in Corvi-
nus’s criticism, but they are apparently involuntary.
It is true that I use many old words, such as Religion.
God, soul, and immortality, in a new sense, but I
104
IX PLY ro A FREETHINKER.
have always been careful to explain what I mean.
Had I ever tried to dodge the truth, or leave people
in doubt as to my opinions, there would be some jus-
tice in the accusations of Corvinus. The fact is that
my definitions are new mainly because they are more
definite than those handed down to us by tradition.
My method of reconciliation consists in showing the
dogmatic believer a way out of his narrowness. I
undertake to instruct him in the meaning of his reli-
gion, pointing out how he can decipher the symbols of
his creed and transfigure them into exact truth. At
the same time I give to the freethinker the key which
will unlock the mysteries of traditional religion, and
exhibit the significance of their peculiar forms, so full
of beauty and comfort to the believer, and so grotesque
to the uninitiated.
That Corvinus judges rashly of the work which I
do, is, in my opinion, simply due to the fact that he
never felt the need of a reconciliation of religion with
science, and science with religion. He knows neither
the real character of the religious people of to-day,
nor does he understand the historical import of reli-
gion. He only knows the little circle of his own so-
ciety, in which freethought prevails, and he has prob-
ably never investigated the evolution of moral ideals,
which, without religion, would never have been dis-
seminated or enthusiastically received among the
masses of mankind. Morality without religion, and of
course we mean here religion in the highest sense of
/X REPL Y TO A FREE THIXKER, T05
tile word, would have simply been fear of the police,
and nothing more.
Corvinus has misunderstood tlie most important
side of my position. He sees the negations alone of
my philosophy, which ally me so strongly with the
freethinker party, but not its affirmations, and I would
say, that if to be a freethinker means to be purely
negative and to reject wholesale everything that has
been established by the millennial evolution of re-
ligion, I am not a freethinker, but I am an ortliodox
among the orthodox ; nay, an arch-orthodox, for while
the old-fashioned orthodoxy claims to be a system of
belief, the new orthodoxy which is implied in the Re-
ligion of Science claims to be based on a firmer founda-
tion than mere belief. * It is built upon evidence which
can be rejected only by those who are unable to com-
prehend the import of facts.
To Corvinus, all religions, and especially Christian-
ity, are errors and unmitigated nonsense, while I see
in them the development of that most important side
of man’s nature, which determines the character of his
life. In my opinion, the very idea of “ a system of
pure ethics ” is unscientific. Ethics is always the ex-
pression of a world- conception. Every religion and
every philosophy has its own ethics. Cut ethics loose
from its basis, and it remains an arbitrary system of
rules without either raison d'etre or authority. The
♦ See the author's article, “The New Orthodoxy,” a paper read before
the Pan-Aroerican Congress of Religion and Education, Toronto, 1805 ; pub-
lished in Th€ 3 !misi, Vol. VI., No. i, pp. 91-98.
io6 LV REPL Y TO A FREE THINKER.
raison dHire of moral commandments is the most es-
sential part of ethics \ it is the root from which moral-
ity springs, and whatever this raison d^Hre be, it is the
religion of the man who owns it. If there are men
who have no other raison d'*Hre for moral conduct than
their own personal welfare, I would say that their re-
ligion consists in the attainment of happiness. If they
recognise no authority to which they bow save their
own pleasure or displeasure, their God is Self. Now,
it has been maintained by some freethinkers that the
very nature of freethought consists in this unshackled
freedom, and I would say that if their conception is
truly legitimate freethought, I am no freethinker, for I
believe, nay, I know, that there is a power in this world
which we have to recognise as the norm of truth and
the standard of right conduct ; and, indeed, there are
conditions in which our personal happiness may seri-
ously come into conflict with our duties. In this sense
I uphold the idea of God as being a supreme authority
I for moral conduct, the presence of which in life can
‘ only be denied by men whose opposition to the false
I dogmatism of the traditional religions leads them to
I deny also their truth, which is their very essence, and
the cause of their continued existence.
Religion, as it originates among the various nations
of the world, is not the product of systematised inves-
tigation, but of race-experience. It is natural that
truths of great importance were, long before a scien-
tific investigation could explain their nature, invented
LV REPLY TO A FRRETHIXKER.
107
by instinct Thus the Egyptians invented imple-
ments, the use of which is based on laws utterly un-
intelligible in those days. In the same way moral
truths were proclaimed by the prophets, w»^ho felt their
significance without being able to explain them by a
philosophical argumentation, and it is to the enormous
practical importance of these truths that they owe
their survival. To show justice and mercy to enemies
appears at first sight foolish, but experience has taught
that the men who insisted on this principle w^ere right,
and the belief in their divine mission became by and
by established. The prophets of almost all nations
were persecuted, but their doctrines survived, and led
naturally enough to the foundation of institutions such
as the synagogue of the Jew's, the church of the Chris-
tians, the sangha of the Buddhists.
The religious conception which it is my life-work
to uphold, is simple enough, yet I find that Corvinus
has radically misunderstood its main significance,
without which all my writing would indeed be a mere
quibbling of words and an ambiguous display of old
phrases, not in a new sense, but without any sense.
One instance will be sufficient to point out the mis-
conception of Corvinus. Corvinus declares that God
is with me ‘^only an idea,” implying that it is no re-
ality. He says (p. 31):
“If God is being defined simply 2^ abstract tbougbt, an idea,
as something existing miy in imagination and not in reality, it is
meaningless to say, ‘ Science is a revelation of God.’ ”
IX REPLY TO A FREETIIIXXER.
loS
And he adds :
"Science is the achievement of man and nothing else."
In opposition to his statement I say that the idea
of God is an abstract thought, but God himself is a
reality. There is no abstract thought but it is in-
vented to describe a reality.* If the term “God ” did
not describe an actual reality, it would be meaningless
to speak of “Science as a revelation of God. ” I grant
that Science is “the achievement of man,” but that is
one side only of the truth. Far from being “the
achievement of man and nothing else^^^ Science is in its
very essence superhuman. Man cannot invent math-
ematics; he must discover its theorems. He cannot
make the laws of nature ; he must describe them. He
cannot establish facts ; he must investigate, and can
only determine the truth. Nor can he set up a code
of morals, but he must adapt himself to the eternal
moral law which is the condition of human society and
the factor that shapes the human of man.
Here is the point where Corvinus radically differs
from my position. He says, quoting a misunderstood
passage from Haeckel :
“ ‘ Constantly to speak of the moral laws of nature proves
blindness to the undeniable facts of human and natural history.’ "
Corvinus adds :
"AH moral laws from their beginning in the dim past among
♦An apparent exception to this rule is the conception of the irrational in
mathematics. The irrational is a symbol representing a function which can-
not be performedi. The root- extraction of ( — i) is as impossible as the squar-
ing of the circle.
LV REPLY TO A EPEETmXKEP. log
OUT rude, savage-like predecessors up to the noblest conceptions of
modern ethics, were conceived, proposed, and consequently estab-
lished by man.”
Corvinus says that necessity gave birth to these
moral laws,” meaning probably by necessity <nhe
needs of man.” I accept his reply, and would say
that the needs of man indicate the presence of a higher
necessity, viz., of that necessity which we trace in the
harmony of natural laws and in the peculiarly compli-
cated simplicity of mathematics. This higher neces ■
sity is the ultimate ra/s<?/i tVetre of the moral law, and
it is a characteristic feature of that omnipotent pres-
ence which we can trace every’where. Intrinsic neces-
sity means eternality, immutability, stern and inflexible
authority — in a word, it means God.
Corvinus confounds two things : moral injunctions
and the natural law of morality. Moral injunctions
are proposed and established by man in his anxiety to
adapt himself to the moral law, exactly as an architect
may write down the rules for building bridges so that
according to the material which he uses the law of
gravitation shall not be infringed upon. If the archi-
teef s rules are in conformity with the natural condi-
tions, such as scientists formulate in what is called
laws of nature, he will be able to build boldly and
securely. And if the laws of legislators are based upon
a correct conception of the moral law of nature, the
nations who adopt them will prosper and progress.
It appears that, according to Corvinus, the moral
no
LV REPLY TO A FREETHIKKER.
law of nature is a nonentity, while the injunctions of
law-givers are all that can be called a moral law. The
fact is just the reverse. The moral law of nature is
the eternal abiding reality, while the laws and injunc-
tions of man are only its transitory and more or less
imperfect expressions. The moral law of nature alone
partakes of that feature which in all religions is attrib-
uted to God. It is eternal, it is omnipresent, it is ir-
refragable. Certainly the moral law is not a concrete
object, not an individual fact, not a personal being,
but for that reason it is not a nonentity. It cannot be
seen with the eye, or heard with the ear, or tasted with
the tongue, or touched with the hands. It is one of
those higher realities which can only be perceived by
the mind. The senses are insufficient to encompass
it, but any normal mind can grasp it.
There was in the Middle Ages a philosophical party
called the Nominalists, who denied the objective ex-
istence of ideas, declaring ideas to be mere names
without any corresponding reality. Their adversaries,
called the Realists, believed in the reality of ideas.
And while the nominalistic philosophy was rejected,
it began to flourish again and found its mightiest ex-
pression in the transcendental idealism of the great
sage of Konigsberg. On this line of thought the whole
universe becomes intrinsically incomprehensible, end-
ing at last in agnosticism, in which Nominalism reaches
its final reductio ad aisurdum.
Corvinus is apparently a nominalist Ideas are to
/X RE FI y TO A FREETinXKER
III
him mere ideas, i. e., subjective inventions without
objective reality ; and science, that most methodical
system of ideas, is not a revelation of objective truth,
but ‘'the achievement of man and nothing else/’ It
is, accordingly, in the same predicament as the names
of the nominalists, and he who studies science is like
Hamlet in one of his erratic moods reading, as he
says, “Words, words, words.” Science would be mere
words without any objective significance.
Now I will not quarrel with Corvinus about names.
He has an inherited objection to the very word “ God. ”
I will not now apply the name God to that peculiar pres-
ence of superhuman reality which the various sciences
reveal to us in parts, but I insist on its being a reality:
indeed, I maintain that it is the most real reality in
the world. We may call it cosmic order, or law {Ge-
s€izmassigkeit)j or necessity, or the eternal, or the im-
mutable, or the omnipresent, the absolute, or the pro-
totype of mind, or the standard of rationality, or the
universal Logos, or the authority of conduct. But it
exists, in undeniable objectivity. We cannot mould it
or shape it, but, on the contrary, we are the products
of its handiwork. Every arithmetical formula, every
law of nature, every truth, is a partial revelation of
its character, and there is nothing in the infinite uni-
verse but is swayed by its influence. It encompasses
the motions of the infinitesimal atoms and of the
grandest suns ; it is the logic of man*s reason and the
nobility of man’s moral aspirations.
112
LY EE PLY TO A FREETHINKER.
It is true that I deny the existence of an individual
God. In this sense I am an outspoken atheist. Never-
theless, I declare most emphatically that Gad is a reaP
ity, and indeed, God is a super-individual reality. In
Corvinus’s opinion this is a flat contradiction and he
has no other explanation of it than by considering
it as a tergiversation. He puts it down as a mania
through which I try to reconcile the errors of the past
with the truths of modern times. By truths of mod-
ern times he understands negations of ail and any posi-
tive issues in religion, so that as soon as I attempt to
formulate* freethought in positive terms, which is tan-
tamount to recognising the truth in our traditions, he
decries me for pandering to popular superstitions.
In my opinion freethought has been barren because
of its negativism and it is now behind the times be-
cause it has failed to come out with positive issues, and
now that The Open Court Publishing Co. is propos-
ing a constructive freethought, its work is suspected,
criticised, and rejected by freethinkers. In spite of the
negations of Corvinus, I insist that the reality of God
is an undeniable fact, scientifically provable by unfail-
ing evidence. It can be estabKshed so surely that Cor-
vinus, as soon as he grasps the meaning of the idea,
would say that it is a truism.
Philosophical materialism has so strongly affected
our ideas that the average mind is incapable of be-
lieving in immaterial realities. First, the immaterial
realities of natural laws were represented as personal
/.V h'EPLV TU A Eh'EETHlXkliR. iij
beings, then as metaphysical essences, and now since
we know that metaphysicism is untenable their very
existence is denied, and, being recognised as immate-
rial, they are declared to be unreal. But the objective
reality of form and the laws of form is exactly the truth
w^hich we must learn to appreciate.
"I That which the senses do not perceive, but is dis-
cernible by the mind, is not non-existent but possesses
a higher kind of existence. It constitutes the unity of
the universe and the harmony of its order. Without
it, the world would not be a cosmos but an incoherent
chaos ; nature would be matter in motion, without any
regularity of mechanical adjustment and the system of
thought-forms which constitutes the superiority of the
human mind w'ould never have developed. Without
it, Science would be mere verbiage, Religion meaning-
less, and ethics an impossibility.
The new philosophy which I represent — call it
Monism, or the New Positivism (for it differs from
Comtean Positivism), or the Philosophy of Science, or
the New Realism— insists on the reality of form and of
relations, and on the significance of ideas. The soul of
man is not in his blood but in his mind. He is not a
mere heap of atoms. He consists of ideas. His ex-
istence is not purely material. It is also, and princi-
pally, spiritual. We grant that there is no ego-soul
There is as little a metaphysical thing-in-itseif of man
as there is a thing-in-itself of a watch, or of a tree, or
of a natural law. But nevertheless, just as much as
LV REPLY TO A FREETHIXKER,
1 14
that combination which makes of a spring, cogs and
wheels, an instrument called a watch, is not a non-
entity but a reality, in the same way man’s soul in
spite of the non-existence of a metaphysical ego-soul
is not a nonentity but a reality ; and the mould into
which we have been cast is that divinity of the world
which was at the beginning and will remain for ever
and aye.
If there is anything that deserves the name of God-
head, it is this peculiar supersensible Reality, the vari-
ous aspects of which are revealed in glimpses that we
receive in Religion, in Ethics, and in Science. For
here alone the attributes of divinity are found, viz.,
omnipresence and universality, immutability and eter-
nity, intrinsic necessity and irrefragability. It is one
and the same in all its various revelations, in mathe-
matical theorems and in ethical injunctions. There is
no wisdom, but it is a comprehension of its truth.
There is no virtue, but it is a compliance with its dis-
pensations. There is no genuine piety, but it is a de-
votion to its beauty and sovereignty. If there are
gods of any kind, it is the God of gods, and if the
word supernatural has any sense, here is it applicable ;
for here we have the conditions for all possible worlds,
and it would remain such as it is, even if nature did not
exist. The simplest formulas of arithmetic as well
as the noblest moral laws, which constitute the superi-
ority of love over hate and of compassion over ferocity,
/*V REPLY TO A fPEETmXKER.
115
hold good for this actual world of ours not less than for
any possible world.
Thus we learn that if God is not wise like a sage,
he is infinitely more than wise ; he is that which con-
stitutes the essence of all wisdom. God is not good
like a well-meaning man ; he is more than a philan-
thropist. God is the measure of goodness and the
moral law of life.
When Corvinus speaks of God he means the God-
conception of average Christianity. But we can assure
him that the masses are not responsible for the religion
which they espouse, while many leaders in the churches
are far from believing in an individual God. They
may not be clear as to the nature of God. They be-
lieve in Him without comprehending his Being ; but
I maintain that upon the whole they have an aspiration
toward a higher conception and that in the long run of
the historical evolution of mankind they will more and
more accept the idea of God as the Religion of Sci-
ence conceives it now. They try to conceive the idea
of God as a truly superpersonal God, and at the same
time think of him still as an individual being, a huge
world-ego. But I venture to say that this combination
is self-contradictory. If such an individual God, a
kind of world-ego, a distinct and single being, existed,
if this God were a being who had been the creator of
the universe and is now its governor and supreme
ruler, I would say that that superpersonal Divinity,
the revelation which we find in science, and the es-
ii6 LV REPLY TO A FREETHINKER.
sence of which is that indescribable presence of law
and cosmic order, must be considered superior to him.
Suppose we call an individual God, after the pre-
cedent of the gnostics, Demiurge ” or world-archi-
tect and represent him, not as the prototype of all
personalit}^ but as an actual person like ourselves, only
infinitely greater. Now, suppose that it was he who
made the world as a watchmaker makes a watch, that
he regulates it as we wind and set our watches, and
that he owns and rules it, and keeps it in order. Must
we not grant at once that the Demiurge, though in-
finitely greater than man, would not be the supreme
Reality? He would have to obey those supernatural
laws of nature which constitute their intrinsic neces-
sity. He would not be the ultimate ground of moral-
ity and truth. There is a higher authority above him.
And this higher and highest authority is the God of
the Religion of Science, who alone is worthy of the
name of God. The God of the Religion of Science is
still the God of the Demiurge. The Demiurge could
have created the world only by complying with the
eternal and unalterable laws of being to which he
would be not less subject than all his creatures.
Taking this ground, we say that the God of the
Religion of Science alone is God, and not the Demi-
urge in whom a great number of the Christians of to-
day still believe. The Demiurge is a mythical figure,
and belief in him is true paganism. Monotheism in
this sense is only a polytheism which has reduced the
IN’ REPLY TO A FREETHINKER. 117
number of its gods to one single god-being. The God
whom the Religion of Science proclaims is not a sin-
gle God-Being, but it is the one, the sole, the self-
consistent, universal sameness of divinity that is the
all-pervading condition of any possible world as a cos-
mic universe.
The God whom the Religion of Science proclaims
is not a new God, but it is the old God proclaimed
by every genuine prophet, among the Jews and also
among the Gentiles, only purified of its paganism.
The Philosophy of Science is not an absolutely new
philosophy, but only a more distinct formulation of
the principles which have long been practised among
scientists. In the same way, the Religion of Science
is not a radically new religion, but a religious reform
which, according to the needs of the time, matures
the old religions and opens a vista into the future, in
which the most radical freethought is reconciled with
the most rigorous orthodoxy. And this is not done by
artificial phrases or by tergiversation, but by fusing
religion in the furnace of science, and by sifting our
religious traditions in the sieve of critique.
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
Among the reviews of The Religion of Science writ-
ten by conservative critics, the most weighty, the
most serious, and, at the same time, the most sym-
pathetic, comes from a Presbyterian pen. Among the
liberal theologians many hesitate to draw the last
consequences ; they are, as a rule, radical in external-
ities but fear to investigate or even touch the very
core of the religious problem. They take offence at one
or another dogma, which in its literal interpretation
has become unbelievable, and pin their faith the more
solidly and systematically upon the main significance
of traditional dogmatology, which is a belief in re-
ligious metaphysics — in a metaphysical God and a
metaphysical soul j yet the metaphysical question is
after all the present issue on which all other religious
problems hinge ; and while externalities of all kinds
are harmless, it is the false metaphysics which we
must get rid of in religion. I have met perhaps more
members of conservative churches, than liberals, who
in personal conversations were willing to make con-
cessions. The liberal theologian generally claims that
122
/A' REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
if we surrender the belief in a personal God and a per-
sonal ego-soul, religion must go and nothing is left ;
while a conservative theologian, although unwilling to
accede to a positivistic conception of religion, under-
stands better that a change in interpretation would
not change facts, and that a religious reformation
would not mean a destruction of religion itself.
My Presbyterian critic, Dr. William Benton Greene,
does not treat me as an infidel and a heretic. Nor
does he warn the faithful not to read expositions of
the religion of science. He meets the issues openly
and squarely, which is a point in his favor and shows
that he has confidence in his own cause. But while
he trusts that he has overthrown my arguments, he
has not convinced me. Nevertheless he has succeeded
in making me anxious to add a few comments in fur-
ther elucidation of my proposition on the main issue
of the religion of science, which is the problem of
personality.
The main objection made by my critic, indeed the
only one that needs a reply, is condensed in these
words :
** On Dr. Carus’s hypothesis an ethical system becomes im-
possible. ‘ Personality is the basis of moral activity/ but, accord-
ing to the ‘religion of science/ personality is only an illusion.”
Here I have to express my unreserved agreement
with my critic’s view that personality is the basis of
moral activity”; and did the religion of science teach
that personality is an illusion, it would have missed
IX REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAX.
123
the mark. The religion of science teaches that the
metaphysical conception of an ego-personality is an
illusion, but it not only does not deny, but actually
insists on the existence of personality and the para-
mount importance of the role that personality plays
in religion.
This is the difference : The metaphysical philos-
opher declares that man’s soul is a mysterious Din^
an sick, which is in possession of sentiments, ideas,
and volitions. Positivism discards the belief in things
in themselves, and insists that the sentiments, ideas,
and volitions themselves constitute man's soul. And
the question between the two views is not limited to
such religious ideas as God and soul, but applies gen-
erally to all conceptions, to the notions of common
life and also to scientific generalisations, such as grav-
ity, matter, electricity, or chemical affinity.
Metaphysical philosophy conceives the world as a
duality ; it assumes the existence, first, of substance,
and then of predicates with which substance is en-
dowed. The substance is supposed to be unknow-
able, while its attributes are knowable. What matter
is, we are told, is a profound mystery ; we only know
the qualities of matter ; what electricity, what light,
what fire is, we can never know ; experience teaches
us only their various modes of action. But how do
we know anything at all about matter, mass, fire, elec-
tricity, and gravity? How do we know that they
exist at all ? Are these terms not mere abstractions ?
124
IN REPLY TO A PRESPYTERIAN.
Are they not simply generalisations of certain actions
of which our experience gives us knowledge ? They
are names by which we denote certain features that
we observe under certain conditions, and the attri-
butes of matter are all there is about matter. Matter
means a definite quality of existence, it is the objec-
tivity of things which affects sensation as resistance.
Mass is weight and volume ; heat is a mode of motion
which disintegrates the molecular constitution of bod-
ies, etc., etc- There is no duality of matter, heat,
electricity, and in addition to them their attributes \
but there is one unitary reality which by the method
of abstraction is knowable in its various parts.
This view, which is sometimes called monism or
a unitary world conception, sometimes positivism or
the world conception which drops the assumptions of
metaphysical entities and aims at making philosophy
a comprehensive and systematic statement of facts,
may fairly be considered as victorious in the domain
of scientific inquiry; and this being the case, it is only
a question of time when it will invade the domain of
popular thought and religious life. This much is
sure, to those theologians who are accustomed to the
old metaphysical world conception it appears like a
threatening thundercloud, boding nothing but de-
struction, or a terrible cyclone.
It is true that positivism overthrew, in the domain
of science, astrology, alchemy, the belief in a phlo-
giston or fire substance, the belief in magic, the hope
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
125
of finding the philosopher’s stone, and ail kindred no-
tions, but for that reason it cannot be denounced as
destructive ; for it gave us astronomy, chemistry, and
all the modern sciences which are slowly accomplish-
ing much grander things than any alchemist ever
could anticipate or hope for. And the same is true of
religion. Positivism will abolish the traditional met-
aphysicism in religion, but it will not destroy religion ;
it will give us a deeper and more solid and a nobler
interpretation of the same facts, which are the ever
present realities of our sublimest hopes and highest
aspirations.
It is fashionable at the present day to rail at the-
ology to the detriment of religion, and to scoff at the
pretensions of orthodoxy, in favor of universal toler-
ance. But what is theology but religion in a scien-
tific conception ; and what is orthodoxy but the con-
fidence of being in possession of the truth? The abo-
lition of theology would degrade religion to mere
sentimentality, and a contempt of the ideal of ortho-
doxy presupposes that truth and error are of equal
value. What we need is the right theology and the
right orthodoxy ! But how shall we decide right or
wrong, genuine or false, truth or error, if not by a
painstaking investigation, or, in a word, by science?
The religious problem is not without the pale of sci-
entific investigation. Let us therefore investigate rev-
erently but fearlessly, and let us bear in mind that
truth, whatever truth may be, is religious revelation,
126
/.V REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
and that science, accordingl}'', is the prophecy which
is with us, even to-day. It is the spirit that coni-
forteth us ; it is the voice of God, more hallowed than
conscience and tradition, both of which may err.
Science is the verdict of the divine tribunal which
no one can ignore without cutting himself loose from
the source of truth. There is a holiness in science
which neither the scientists nor the leaders of reli-
gious thought have sufficiently emphasised. If there
is any light by which man can hope to illumine his
path so as to take firm steps, it is science ; and the
application of this principle to all religious problems
is what we call the religion of science.
Positivism in psychology does not deny the per-
sonality of man ; it only denies that personality is a
Ding an sich. It denies that there are two things,-— a
person and the character with all its various attri-
butes. Character is simply another name for a person
of a definite mental and moral constitution. Positiv-
ism denies that there is a distinct ego- soul which is in
possession of thought and will; it declares that the
thought of a man and his will are parts of his being ;
they are the most important parts of himself ; they
are the essential constituents of his soul. It further
shows that while death is a dissolution of the individ-
ual, the soul-forms are not destroyed ; the sentiments,
the thought, the will, continue in their individual idio-
syncrasy, and thus the personality of a man is pre-
served and does not suffer annihilation. Therefore,
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
127
the main duty of life is the formation of soul, the
building up of personality, the strengthening of char-
acter. The acquisition of knowledge and of wealth
are not unimportant aims of life, but both are of sec-
ondary importance, for they are mere externalities in
comparison to the moral worth of a strong will in
well-directed personality.
The religion of science, in the same way that it
does not abrogate the personality of man but offers a
clearer, a truer, and a better explanation of person-
ality, offers a more consistent and a more scientific
conception of God. Martensen may be right that
‘‘ all attempts to apprehend God as a superpersonal
being” have ^*onlyled to the result that God has
been apprehended as being beneath personality.”
While we may grant that so far they have not as yet
led to something better, w^e do not see why finally
they should not lead to a conception of God as being
above personality. And that is the aim which the
religion of science pursues. If our view is not more
consistent, and philosophically more deepened than
the traditional dogmatic God conception, we are wil-
ling to listen to criticism. Until we are refuted by ar-
gument, we still maintain that a personal (i. e., an in-
dividual) God-conception is untenable. God cannot
be an individual being as we are. If God exists at all,
he must be superior to man ; he cannot be a particu-
lar thing like his creatures ; he must be that which
conditions and forms all things j he must be the ere-
128
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
ator. That man is made in his image, does not justify
the pagan habit of making gods after man’s image.
God as conceived by the religion of science is not
a person who at a given moment is in a definite place
and thinks one definite idea, saying (as we might) to
himself, “ I will do this, and shall not do that.” God
is omnipresent, immutable, eternal. Whatever is om-
nipresent, immutable, and eternal, is a feature of
God’s being. He is that presence which is forming
the world in every detail, revealing itself most com-
pletely in man’s rational will and moral aspirations,
which I conceive to be the characteristic marks of
personality. Thus God, albeit that he is not an in-
dividual person, is yet the condition of all personality.
He is not a person himself ; he is not a human indi-
vidual like man ; he is not a limited being of a par-
ticular cast of mind, but without him there would
be nothing that constitutes personality, no reason, no
science, no moral aspiration, no ideal, no aim and
purpose in man’s life. God, in a word, is that which
makes all this possible. He is, therefore, not less
than personality, but infinitely more than personality,
or briefly stated : He is superpersonal.
Now let us regard this conception of God and of
man’s soul as a matter of private opinion, as a philo-
sophical view which is proposed for what it is worth,
and may be accepted by some, while it will be rejected
by others. The question arises, Should it not at once,
as soon as we see that it diflers from the traditional
IN' REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAX,
129
interpretation of Christianity, be classed as Anti-Chris-
tian or even as anti-religious? If it is suffered as an
allowable interpretation of religion, “is it not,” as my
critic claims, “apt to mislead the community at the
outset”?
This is a question which I ha'v'e carefully consid-
ered and reconsidered, and I am not willing to mis-
lead the community. Nevertheless, I have come to
the conclusion that an interpretation of religion is not
religion itself, and if Christianity is to survive the
present crisis, it will have to enter into a new phase
of its development. The present crisis is by no means
extraordinary or fatal ; nor is it due to a disease of
the times ; it is the inevitable result of the natural
growth of our scientific comprehension. The same
arguments -with which now the traditional conception
of Christianity is defended, have been used time and
again against the Copemicans and lately against the
evolutionists.
The main question is, Is Christianity capable of
growth or not ? Is it a doctrine once revealed that
remains the same for ever and aye, or is it an histori-
cal movement which reflects an eternal truth that with
the increase of scientific insight is better and bet-
ter understood? When Christ appeared he gave a
powerful impetus to the world, which became the be-
ginning of a new era ; he started the movement, but
he did not reveal the full truth 1 He spoke in parables
only, and promised the continuance of divine revela-
130
IN' REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
tion in the spirit of truth, the comforter, the Holy
Ghost. And this spirit of truth came and ensouled
the disciples who otherwise would not have had the
courage to preach the gospel of resurrection. What-
ever error the early Christians may have cherished in
the first days of the Church, this much is sure, that
the actual idea of the new creed, the idea of immor-
tality, was its strength ; and if the truth was neither
clearly nor scientifically understood, the sentiment
was eagerly apprehended. The original doctrines
changed. The Jewish Christianity, with its belief in
the millennium on earth, gave way to the Greek Chris-
tianity of the belief in the logos made flesh; both
were necessary phases in the growth of the new reli-
gion. The blossom develops but its petals fall off
when the fruit begins to ripen. So the dogmatology
of Christianity served its purpose, and when in the
age of science its flowers fade it is the sign that reli-
gion is entering into a phase of greater maturity.
If ** distinctively Christian means that which
Christian councils have declared . to be distinctively
Christian, then the religion of science must une-
quivocally be regarded as Anti-Christian. But if these
various doctrines of Christian dogmatology, especially
the metaphysical interpretation of men’s personality,
were, indeed, the characteristic features of Christian-
ity, why did the founder of Christianity neglect to dis-
cuss and explain them? Christ never took the trouble
to investigate any one of the fundamental problems of
IN' REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN. 131
psychology, and confined his sermons to a considera-
tion of p!ractical questions, using the language of his
time and adopting the popular conceptions of his con-
temporaries, such as the idea of demoniacal posses-
sion as the cause of disease. And indeed, had he
spoken the language of the civilised nations of the
nineteenth century, and had he explained the Coper-
nican world conception and the theory of evolution,
he would have preached to deaf ears; his mission
necessarily would have been a failure. Jesus, in order
to become Christ and be the founder of Christianity,
had to be a man of his time in order to be compre-
hensible to his contemporaries. His time was the
point to which the lever had to be applied and through
which he could affect the whole future of mankind.
It was not his business to reveal the scientific truths
of later centuries ; he had come to kindle a fire on
earth, the fire of love, of good will, of a hunger after
righteousness. That being accomplished, he left the
completion of his work to the spirit whom he had
promised to send.
Christas views were interpreted by the fathers of
the Church, and they formulated the dogmas of Chris-
tianity, which by many Christians are supposed to be
binding to this day. They, being believers in the
philosophy of their time, foisted a metaphysical con-
ception upon Christianity, and if the metaphysics of
Athanasius, St. Augustine, and Thomas Kempis be,
indeed, the distinctive feature of Christianity, then
132
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
Christianity cannot remain the religion of the future.
I claim, however, that a positivistic conception of re-
ligion is at least not less scriptural than the meta-
physical dogmatism of an ego-soul and a God-indi-
vidual.
Jesus said, << I am the way, the truth, and the life ! ”
and again, explaining what he meant by truth, he
said, “ The words which I speak unto you, they are
the truth. He does not say, I am an ego-being, or
a metaphysical entity, or a person, that walks on the
way and owns the truth ; he says, ‘ * I am the way,
the truth and the life, and words are the truth,” words
being an embodiment of ideas. This conception of a
superpersonal Christ is actually the essence of Greek
Christianity, which is briefly expressed in the sentence,
^'The word became flesh.” It is the doctrine that
Christ is the incarnation of the logos. Christ has not
the logos ,* he is the logos. This is positivism which
in the mind of a metaphysical philosopher would be
rank heresy ; but it is the philosophy of the religion
of science condensed into a single word.
Several centuries ago all the representative Doc-
tors of Divinity argued that if the earth were not flat,
God’s word would be a lie and that therefore science
was wrong and the Church was right. The adversa-
ries of the Copernican system have disappeared, but
the old argument, although its worthlessness is une-
quivocally established, is repeated whenever a new
conflict arises between a better comprehension of
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN. 133
facts and traditional errors that touch religious ques-
tions.
And what is the spirit whom Christ promised to
send? The spirit appears in the aspirations and rev-
elations of truth. The spirit manifests itself in the
zeal for every righteous cause and in the recognition
of new discoveries and a better comprehension of the
world and of the purpose of life. The spirit, in these
days, moves pre-eminently in the progress of man's
social relations and appears in fullest radiance in the
advance of science. Science, indeed, as the ultimate
touchstone of truth, is the highest expression of the
revelation of the spirit. And here we remind our
friends who still adhere to a literal belief in dogmas,
of the awful saying of Jesus that, ''All sins shall be
forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies where-
with soever they shall blaspheme. But he that shall
blaspheme against the Holy Ghost has never forgive-
ness, but is in danger of eternal damnation,”^
Why is this ? The answer is simple enough. It is
not God who condemns the sinner ; but the sin of the
sinner has its natural consequences, and that is what
we call damnation. Now, if a man, as a matter of
principle, shuts out the light that God sends him,
how can he expect salvation? The dogmatist who
for the sake of blind faith shuts out the light of scien-
tific truth, be he ever so pious and well-intentioned,
is, in the long run, hopelessly doomed to go to the
JMark iii.,
134
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
wail, because he despises the information through
the spirit There is no hope for him who with con-
scious intention sets himself against the progress of
the age. Self-stultification that stunts the intellectual
development of the mind is as much a sin as theft and
murder j and if its cause lies in the heart’s hostile dis-
position toward the light, it is the gravest sin imagin-
able, for it is a slaying of the spirit.
The religion of science proposes a reform that is
radical ; it is not a reform such as is proposed by va-
rious liberal theologians who object to one or another
dogma, but a reform which changes the whole inter-
pretation of the traditional material.
The reformatory efforts of liberal theologians are
often very inconsistent. They misunderstand the sym-
bolical nature of religious dogmas and, accepting
dogmas in the literal sense, object to the irrationality
of one or another doctrine. Thus their reform is par-
tial, and would lead, if it were consistent, to an utter
dissolution of religion. The attitude of such ex-parte
reformers is splendidly caricatured in Hudor Genone’s
satire “The Little Glass Slipper.”^ There we are
told that one of the little girls at school refused to be-
lieve in a crystal slipper ; she protested that she be-
lieved in everything else j she believed in a plenary
inspiration of Cinderella as a whole. She believed in
the wicked sisters and a genuine live prince. Even
the transformation of the pumpkin and mice into a
1 The Opn Ceuri, No. aoo, Vol, V,, p. 3853,
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTEEIAX.
135
royal carriage gai^e her no difficulty, but she could
not make up her mind to believe in glass slippers-
The result was that she was tried and condemned for
heresy.
With all my close relations to liberalism, I cannot
help being in strong sympathy with the old-fashioned
orthodoxy, with all its hardness and stern rigidity.
There is a consistency of thought in the traditional
dogmatism that is absent in the most conspicuous
liberal theologians. Hengstenberg, in spite of his
narrowness, is more logical than Harnack, and after
all, I would venture to defend the old-fashioned ortho-
doxy against all sectarian innovations, if one point
only were granted me, — a point which has never been
denied by anyone of the Christian churches, — viz.,
that all dogmas are symbols of truths that their allegor-
ical nature must be insisted upon, and that they must not
be understood in their literal sense.
If a poet were requested to make a popular state-
ment of all those philosophical truths which have a
practical bearing on man’s moral life, for the purpose
of communicating their significance to the untutored
masses of mankind, I believe he could scarcely devise
a better illustration of them than has been worked out
in the Christian doctrines of God, the incarnation of
the Logos, and the immortality of the soul.’*' Here
are deep truths formulated in poetical allegories in
* Otlier religions, too, possess their own peculiar beauties, and especially
the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation contains a moral lesson of great im-
portance.
136 IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN,
such a way as to be understood by people who have
not been trained to scientific thinking and are in-
capable of comprehending philosophical ideas in their
abstract purity.
In the evolution of the Church, doctrines will be
understood crudely by the crude, and sensually by the
sensual, which will lead to dogmatism with its narrow-
ness and other serious aberrations. The dangers of
dogmatism cannot be denied, yet it will be better for
the uneducated to have at least a glimpse of religious
truth, than to be void of it altogether.
Religion is philosophy in the shape of symbolical
representations, and develops, by the way of inspira-
tion, in flashes of prophetic visions. Religious con-
ceptions that inculcate the right kind of morality are
as important a factor in the evolution and preservation
of the right kind of humanity as is instinct in the ani-
mal world.
Christianity is the best religion, if only Christians
can overcome the literalness of belief. It is the letter
that killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.
The religion of science comes as an ally of the
traditional religious doctrines, and promises to pre-
serve of it all that is true and good. The religion of
science alone can transfigure the old conceptions and
change them into a new orthodoxy which, as the trust
in scientifically verifiable truth, has a better claim to
the title than the blind faith theory of the old meta-
physical interpretation of Christianity.
ly M£FLV TO A PRESBYTERIAX. is7
A few words might be added in reply to the point
which Dr. Greene raises in protest against the aboli-
tion of prayer in the sense of petition.
Christ does not say that the Heavenly Father will
comply wdth the wishes of those \\ ho pray. The pas-
sage, *‘Ask and it shall be given you,” is on the con-
dition that we ask the right thing. Christ enjoins us
to ask not for our wdli to be done, but for God’s will
to be done ; not for the coming of our kingdom, but
for the coming of God^s kingdom ; not for the glorifi-
cation of our name, but that God’s name shall be
hallowed; not that we should acquire wealth and
eartniy possessions, but that we should not take heed
of the morrow, being satisfied with the bread that
God gives us this day ; not that we should prosper,
but that we should learn to avoid temptation and be
redeemed from evil. All these prayers are intended,
not to change God’s will, but the will of the man who
prays. It is the abolition of prayer in the sense of
begging, and raises the pagan habit of praying into
the higher domain of self-discipline. All Christian
prayer is a preparation of the heart for the reception
of the Holy Spirit. This is corroborated by Dr.
Greene’s own quotation: ^‘If ye, then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask Him.”
But prayer is not sufiicient for the reception of the
Spirit ; prayer is the preparation of the heart to re-
138
IN REPLY TO A PRESBYTERIAN.
ceive it. The next and, indeed, the main condition
for the reception of the Spirit is exertion. Unless we
are willing to learn and exert ourselves, we shall not
receive the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the truth that continues to re-
veal itself to mankind in its progressing science and
civilisation. Science is a revelation of God, and being
immediate and indubitable, it is the criterion by which
alone truth can be measured. Woe to those who re-
ject science; they reject the Spirit, and to reject the
Spirit is the sin unto death.
May our minds be open to receive the truth, and
may we not harden our hearts against the teachings
of the Holy Spirit !
INDEX.
INDEX.
Achromatic, reality as, 58,
Adoration, its pagan character, 70.
Affliction, comfort in, 3 ; its benefits,
14.
Aim of life, 3, 42.
Alchemists not to be despised, 66.
All-being, its paternity and perfec-
tion, 94.
Allegories, poetical, I 3 S-
Allegory, adapted to certain ages and
states, 71. 99 -
Analogies useful in scientific formu-
lations, 67.
Animism, 58,
Annihilation of the soul, 55-
Anthropo theism, 22, 23.
Arch-orthodox, 105.
Artist, function of. 70.
Asceticism, 30, 97.
Astrologers not to be despised, 66.
Atheism, its dlefinitkm, 22.
Augustine, St., cited, 96; his breadth
of conception, 95.
Authority for conduct, 21, 23. 27; its
basis, 12, X09, III.
Being, a revelation of All-being, 74.
Blind faith, 9.
Book, a simile of man, 49,
Buddha, in invisible church, v.
Buddhistic ethics, 29.
Catholic religion, the true, 10.
Catholicity of the Religion of Sci-
ence. iv, 93,
Ceremonies, according to Religion of
Science, 11.
Changes brought about by knowl-
edge, 93-
Chnst, a living presence to-day, 84 ;
an ideal figure, 77; cited. So, S3:
distinguished from Jesus, 7^; his
spirit, 78; in invisible church, \ ;
his teaching on Sabbath questicn,
81, 82; not an enemy of reason, Si :
the key-note of historical evolution,
79 ; the spirit of evolution, 80.
Christ-ideal, a tendency, 79; its im-
portance, 78.
Christian departure from Christ-
ideal, 79; ethics, 29, 79; represen-
tation of continuance of souMife,
48.
Christianity, 129, 130, 131; called cos-
mic religion by Augustine, 95, 96 ;
injured by Sabbatarians, 83 ; its
ideal, 73; not free from idolatry,
70; the best of religions, 70.
Christians contrasted with Christ,
80, 90,
Church, the invisible, 73.
Cinderella, 134.
Civilisation, its moral effect, 38; per-
vaded by the spirit of Christ, 79.
Comfort in affliction, 3.
Conception, metaphysical, 123.
Confucius, in invisible church, v.
Convictions, result of experience, 47 -
Copernican system, 132.
Corvinus, 103.
Cosmic religion identified by Augus-
tine with Christianity, 95, 96.
Creation in image of God, 5».
Creed contrasted with faith, 9; its
definition, 8.
142
INDEX.
Day of rest desirable, 84.
Deism, its definition, 23.
Demiurge, 116.
Disposition, inherited, 47.
Divinity, of man, 51 ; in the universe,
23; of nature, the standpoint of re-
ligion, 100.
Doctrines of Religion of Science, 10,
II,
Dogma, its definition, 8 ; rejected by
Religion of Science, 10.
Dogmatic religions, prophesies of
religion of truth, 65; under the
spell of paganism, 70.
Dogmatism, its evils, 95.
Duty arises from every truth, 32;
ethics of, 27 ; implied in the con-
ception of soul, 56.
Ecclesiasticism not Christ’s religion,
90.
Ego, an illusion, 99 ; its contents
changeable, 40; its definition, 39.
Ego-soul not the real soul, 41, 98; ob-
jection to its abandonment, 55.
Eleusinian mysteries, their represen-
tation of immortality, 48.
Emotional life should be centred in
soul, 54.
Enjoyment not the end of existence,
94.
Entheism, its acceptance by Religion
of Science, 24; its definition, 23.
Epitaph of Benjamin Franklin, 49.
Established religions, their form
mythological, 71,
Eternity in laws of nature, 19.
Ethics, a branch of science, 13 ; es-
sentially uniform throughout uni-
verse, 51 : religious and irreligious,
27-
Everlastingness in laws of nature, 19 *,
its ultimate authority, 21,
Evils of life, how to combat them, 14.
Evolution, cosmic, 24, 56; historical,
Christ its key-note, 79 ; human, 29,
48, 50; of religious and spiritual
entities, 67, 72.
Faith contrasted with creed, 9.
Feeling, necessity of its education, 53.
Franklin, Benjamin, his epitaphs, 49
Freethinker, 103.
Galatians, Epistle to, cited, 83.
Genone, Hudor, 134.
xxi.
Goal of religious development, 69, 72.
God, III, 127, 128 ; as viewed by sci-
ence, 21, 22; of the Religion of Sci-
ence, 106, 114-117; immutability of
his will, 85 ; his incarnation, 51; in
what sense one, 23 ; not a person,
but superpersonal, 23, 99; of pagan-
ism, 70; the eternity of nature, 24:
the source and destiny of the soul,
55i 99 ; various views of, 22, 97 ; a
reality, 112.
Gods, their true significance, 70,
Gospels, their historical character, a
purely scientific problem, 77; the
miracles in, 78.
Greene, Dr. William Benton, 122, 137.
Guidance in vicissitudes of life, 3.
Habits, how acquired, 35, 47.
Happiness, in union with God, 99,
its purport and value, 28, 31 ; only
possible through religion, 94.
Harmony of natural laws, 20.
Hamack, 135.
Heaven and hell, conditions, not
places, gg.
Hedonism, 27, 29.
Hengstenberg, 135.
Holtzmann, cited, 77.
Holy Ghost, 135, 134.
Holy Spirit, 137, 138.
Hume, David, 58.
Hypocrisy in prayer, 89.
Ideal of religious development, 72, 73.
Ideals embodied in legends, 78.
Ideas, definition of, 36 ; implanted by
education, 47 ; their relation to the
ego, 39. 48. 50.
Idolatry, in the churches, iv; its def-
inition, 70.
Image of God, 51.
Immortality, a moral question, 53, 57;
a fact, 48, 58 ; its nature, 47, 56 ; its
INDEX.
^43
variotis representations, 48 ; neces-
sary to evolation, 48.
ImalntabiHty of natural laws, 19.
Impulses, definition, 35, 36.
Incantation, true prayer not an, 89.
Incarnation of God, 51.
Incarnation of the Logos, 133.
Indifference, religious, 9.
Injunctions and the moral law, log.
Inquiry a religious duty, 10.
Instinct and religion, 136.
Invisible church, its nature, v; its
significance, 73.
Jesus, cited, 4, 81: his historic char-
acter, 77.
Kant, cited, 84, 88.
Knowledge, cause of wonderful
changes, 8S, 89.
Law of morality, log.
Laws of nature, 19, 20. 21, 50, 87. iii.
Legends a revelation of ideals, 78,
Lewins, 57.
Liberal theologians, 134.
Liberty, advocated by St. Paul, 81 ;
Christians its enemies, 80.
Liebig on the alchemists, 66.
Little Glass Slipper, 134.
Logos, Christ is the, 132 ; incarnation
of the, 135.
Lord’s prayer, no prayer in the com-
mon sense, 89 ; quoted, 85,
Luther, Martin, cited, iv.
Man, his creation in the image of
God, 51.
Mark, cited, 80; the oldest of the
Gospels, 77.
Materialism, 112.
Meaning in feelings, 37.
Medulla Animae, of Tauler, cited, 97.
Metaphysical conception, 123.
Metaphysicism, 59 ; in religion, 125.
Metaphysics, 121, 131.
Method of finding a religion, 4.
Mind, its origin, 37.
Miracles, indicate the power of the
Christ-ideal, 78; not besought by
Christ, 85.
Monism, 124,
Monotheism, 22.
Moral, law of nature, 20; life a con-
dition cf revelation, too: standards
of the Religion of Science, 12, 57.
Morality the expression of character,
57 -
Moses, in invisible church, v.
Motives and ideas are the soul. 50.
Mystery, dispelled by science, 42; its
function, 14 : of being, to whom re-
vealed, 100.
Mythological religions, their origin,
66 .
Mythology, in religion, yx; in science,
65, 68 ; its nature and functions, 65,
78,97.99; now untenable, 71 ; whtii
injurious, 66,
Natural revelation the foundation of
religion and science, 71.
Nature, hostile to egotism, 54; in-
creased knowledge cf, 87; its inex-
orable law, 21, 87.
Necessity, 109.
New birth, 56.
Nominalism, iro-iii.
Nomotheism, 23, 24.
Object of life, 3, 42.
Open Court Publishing Company, its
work, Iii.
Open questions in science, 13.
Orthodoxy, 125, 135; the true, 10, 105.
Paganism, its definition, 69; its evil,
70; its consistency with true Chris-
tianity, 83; its prevalence, iii, 77;
its view of Sunday, 82.
Pantheism, 22, 23.
Parables, 129; tbeir usefulness, 70.
Paul, St, cited, 83.
Personal relation to God possible
and imperative, 93.
Personality, 122, 127; its constituent
elements, 47; its contents change-
able, 40; preserved, ia6.
Pharisees, name-Cfarittians their suc-
cessors, 90.
Philosophy and religion, 136,
Planets, their inhabitants, 51.
Pleasure, ethics of, 27.
144
INDEX,
Poet, functions of, 70.
Poetical allegories, 135.
Polytheism, 22.
Positivism, 134, 125, 126,
Prayer, 137; abolished by Christ, 85;
abolition of, 137; for weaning one-
self from prayer, 86 ; in the Religion
of Science, 71, 86 ; its pagan signifi-
cance, 70; not supplication, 88; not
to be discarded, 86, 87 ; should be
an act of self-discipline, 88; that
of Christ and the Christians con-
trasted, 88, go.
Preachers, their teaching unreliable,
81.
Precepts of Religion of Science, 33.
Priests, basis of their authority, la;
their teaching inconsistent and un-
reliable, 81.
Principles of Religion of Science, 8.
Progress, Christians its enemies, 80;
religious and scientific, v, 68, 72.
Prophets, basis of their authority, 12.
Prototype of soul, 51,
Purpose of life, 3.
Questions of science, 13.
Race-experience, 106.
Reactions of impulse, 36.
Reason, its uniformity throughout the
universe, 51; not opposed by Christ,
84.
Redeemer, the only, g.
Religion, 106; its basis, 8; its begin-
ning, 69 ; its definition, 3, 7, 6g ; its
demand, 100, its development, v,
67, 68, 72 ; its unity, v ; not due to
supernatural revelation, v, 71 ; not
in conflict with science, 71; of
Christ not ecclesiasticism, 90; pu-
rified hy science, 42; secret of its
benefits, 100; the Christianity of
Christ, 90 ; to some a mystery, 93.
Religion and instinct, 136.
Religion and philosophy, 136.
Religon of Science, church-religions
its temporary substitutes, 100; com-
pared with others, 95: its charac-
ter, iii-vi; on God, 114, 117.
Religions, not to be abolished but
purified, iii ; viewed by the Reli-
gion of Science, 65.
Religious truth, 52, 71.
Resignation, of idea of self-owner-
ship, 54 ; the true spirit of prayer,
90.
Resurrection, belief of Christians in
its mythic form, 82; of the body,
its significance, 48.
Revelation, a synonym for science,
iv; in the book of nature, iii, 77;
the true, in experience, 71, 108.
Revelations, special, unknown to Re-
ligion of Science, 71.
Revision of doctrines, 10.
Ritnal, according to Religion of Sci-
ence, ii; in Christianity, 80.
Romans, epistle to, cited, 83.
Sabbatarians make Christianity a
nuisance, 83.
Sabbath, its abolition by first Chris-
tians, 82; its misunderstanding a
sign of p^iganism, 83; question,
opinion of Jesus on, 81.
Sacraments, ii.
Sansara and “nature,” 96.
Science, 126; a synonym for revela-
lation, iv; as a revelation of God,
108, 138 ; its authority, 13 ; its defi-
nition, 7, 13 ; its influence on reli-
gious life, iv; its methods, 4; its
progress, 68 ; its verdicts to be ac-
cepted, 12; its view of God, 21 ; not
in conflict with religion, 71 ; Reli-
gion of, 4, 7.
Scientific conclusions, why not ac-
cepted, 52.
Scientists sometimes their own pope,
13; their authority, 12, 13; their
place in the Religion of Science,
12.
Scribes and Pharisees, name-Chris-
tians their successors, 90.
Scriptures, their function, 81.
Sectarianism, disappearing, iv.
Self, an incarnation of nature’s di-
vinity, 94 ; how constituted, 39, 50,
55.
Sensations are signs, 37-
Sermon on the Mount, cited, 85.
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